Theodore Géricault’s Living Picture “Raft of the Medusa” in Scenography: Visual Experience of the Romantic Era

Abstract

This article demonstrates the connections between visual and the theatrical mise en scène, raises the question of the inclusion of a live painting in the theatrical narrative as a form of interpretation of original painting, and finally presents the diversity of visual experience of the era in which static images coexisted with the moving ones. For the first time Géricault’s painting was animated on stage in 1820, a year after it was exhibited at the Salon (W. T. Moncrieff ’s melodrama “The Wreck of the Medusa, or the Fatal Raft”, London). Then in 1839 audiences saw it in Paris in a drama by Ch. Denoyer at the Théâtre Ambigue Comique and in an opera by F. Flottov to a libretto by the Cognard brothers at the Théâtre Renaissance. Denoisier’s drama proved to be the most suitable for transfer to other stages, and from 1847 to 1876 Géricault’s picture came to life at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, and on other Russian stages until 1914. As far as we know, none of the Russian art and theatre historians have paid attention to the stage embodiment of the famous picture. In the works on the history of Russian theater, Ch. Denoyer’s play is mentioned, but no more than that. On the contrary, foreign researchers of the 19th century art treat with great interest the interaction of painting, theater, and new optical spectacles in a single field of visual experience, including such classics of visual studies as P. Virillo and J. Creri. But neither they nor others have touched the Russian material. The article fills the gap in Russian art history and presents an analysis of the contexts in which the story of the Géricault’s living picture aroused interest; it traces the history of the transfer of Géricault’s painting to the Russian stage basing on archiveal sources.