《藝術學研究》 2006 年 6 月，第一期，頁 103-128 在英雄殞落之後的英雄： Géricault 的《梅杜莎之筏》 Gregor Wedekind* 摘要 在1819年，沙龍展出由Géricault所畫的《梅杜莎之筏》，呈現了對歷 史繪畫的抨擊，而歷史畫類主要是將英雄形象概念化的繪畫類別 。 Géricault 的繪畫違反了所有歷史繪畫不可或缺的美學範疇，這類的範疇 確立了廣泛且普世隱含的寓意。然而在同時，巨幅的型式以及Géricault對 於人體獨具風格的處理，無疑地使這幅畫意圖達到歷史繪畫的高尚情 操。縱使Géricault筆下的新英雄激起了觀賞者的同情，他這些新英雄絕非 是供人認同的嶄新形象。畫中對立的美學結構並不允許以如此單一明確 的解讀。他英雄化了一種人類企圖透過藝術去激發的特定情感，而此種 情感並非以傳統的英雄再現便可以達成的。這已經不再是以往那些著名 的英雄人物，甚至也不是單一的無名英雄，取而代之的是英雄式人體的 聚合，企圖展現英雄式苦難，並使人信服。實際上，這樣的效果是由圖 畫整體所達成的。有鑑於此，圖畫本身的美學價值便躍然眼前。從一開 始，這幅畫的評論便來回於超人的尺寸與力量的描繪，以及創作本身必 備的超人尺寸與精力，也就是擺盪於主題與創作過程之間。Géricault在此 巨幅作品當中呈現的宏偉姿態，乃試圖超越歷史繪畫的傳統。他所選擇 的篇幅和構圖，將富有爭議性的主題擴大為傑出的藝術，這些都傳遞了 * 現職於德國駐法藝術史研究中心。 《藝術學研究》第一期（2006.06） 別出心裁的訴求，直接傳達了他對於功成名就的渴望。作品的創作者， 也就畫家本人，儼然顯現於畫作之後，成了真正的英雄。 （翻譯：李鎧伊） 關鍵字：Théodore Géricault、梅杜莎之筏、英雄 104 Gregor Wedekind, Heroes after the Death of the Hero: Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa Heroes after the Death of the Hero: Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa Gregor Wedekind* I. Théodore Géricault’s painting, The Raft of the Medusa [Ill. 1],1exhibited in the Salon of 1819, is a decisive case for the entire question of heroic images, the question of the representation of the hero in history painting. But to begin, let us start with the problems posed by this work: at issue here is a painting that in the classical sense is neither a history painting nor a depiction of a hero. First of all, there’s the subject of the work: the painting represents a calamity that took place during a colonial expedition to Senegal. Due to human error, the captain’s incompetence of character and seamanship, and the inhumane cockiness of French government officials, one hundred fifty people, largely soldiers, were sent out to sea on a rickety timbered raft after the Medusa, a ship leading a small colonial fleet, went aground off the coast of Africa. In the following twelve days on the open ocean, one hundred thirty five of the shipwrecked died under the most miserable, horrific, and brutal conditions. Drifting across the sea, they were subjected to sun, hunger, thirst, strife, murder, revenge, and cannibalism: only fifteen survived the ordeal. Are they heroes? * The author is currently a researcher at Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte/Centre Allemand d'Histoire de l'Art, Paris. 1 Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1819, Oil on Canvas, 491 x 716 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre. 105 《藝術學研究》第一期（2006.06） No, not by any means—they are victims. People who by coincidence or by accident become the victims of a senseless crime and are forced to suffer to their deaths or to the last minute of their rescue are not heroes. They provide nothing in terms of a model worthy of emulation. Belonging to the category faits divers—violent, bizarre, anecdotal subjects from the events of the time—depictions of a crime or a catastrophe like this were known as ocassionelles or canards. But, as the art historian Robert Simon has noted, this picture of the drifting raft represented an immensely enlarged canard, an exaggeration of this genre of anecdotal illustration.2 As a depiction of a shipwreck, The Raft would have rather required the genre’s mid-sized format. Accordingly, contemporary art criticism only saw in the image—ce tableaux monstreux3—a mere apologue of the lowly and the ugly, and criticized the lack of a moral message and of a heroic protagonist or a positive heroic figure. As one critic put it in 1819 in the Gazette de France, everything about this picture is horribly passive; there is nothing honorable about this scene for moral humanity.4 And a critic in the Conservateur complained about the painting’s display of franticness and hopelessness, pointing out that the egotism 2 Robert Simon, “Géricault und die Faits divers,” in Bilder der Macht, Macht der Bilder. Zeitgeschichte in Darstellungen des 19. Jahrhunderts (Veröffentlichungen des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte, 12), ed. Stefan Germer and Michael F. Zimmermann (München and Berlin: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1997) pp. 192-207. 3 N.N., “Exposition de 1819. Deuxième article,” in: Gazette de France, no. 243, 31. August 1819, p. 1050. 4 Ibid.: “Il [Géricault] a cru qu’il pouvait se passer d’un sujet, d’une action et de toutes les combinaisons dramatiques imposées par les muses à leurs desservans sur tous les sentiers qui conduisent à la gloire; point de figures principales, point d’épisodes, tout est ici hideusement passif; rien ne repose l’âme et les yeux sur une idée consolante; pas un trait d’héroïsme et de grandeur, pas un indice de vie et de sensibilité, rien de touchant, rien d’honorable pour l’humanité morale.” Cf. Germain Bazin, Théodore Géricault. Étude critique, Documents et Catalogue Raisonné, (Paris : Bibliothèque des arts, 1987), I, no. 140, p. 44. 106 Gregor Wedekind, Heroes after the Death of the Hero: Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa of the shipwrecked would deny them any recourse to divine assistance or mutual solace.5 Secondly, there is the painting’s composition: its centrifugal plan violates the convention and is unique in the classical tradition. The ensemble, arranged like a St. Andrew’s cross, was perceived by a critic writing in the Indépendant as “confused.”6 And another critic asked, “Where is here the center? Which figure should one concentrate upon, and what is the general expression of the subject? A few corpses…a few dead men…a few men left to despair and a few others that hold onto a weak beam of hope, these are the elements of the composition, which the artist—despite his talent—did not know to arrange in a satisfactory manner.”7 Thirdly, there is the question of narrative: contrary to the narrative nature of history painting, Géricault breaks up linearity as the narrative ordering of all action: the image is built up on a hiatus, and has a void as its 5 Le comte O’Mahony, “Exposition des tableaux. (Troisième article). Suite des tableaux d’histoire,” in: Le Conservateur, V, 1819, 56e livraison, p. 190: “Sur un radeau qu’une vague va submerger, le peintre a accumulé tout ce que le désespoir, la rage, la faim, l’agonie, la mort, la putréfaction même offrent de plus repoussant et tout cela est exécuté avec une surabondance de verve, une vérité de dessin, une énergie de touche, une hardiesse de pinceau et de couleur qui en centuple les épouvantables effets; et rien, absolument rien ne tempère tant d’horreurs. Tous vont périr, nulle chance de salut ne leur reste; car aucun d’eux n’a les mains levées vers celui auquel les mers et les vents obéissent. Renfermés en eux-mêmes, de l’abîme des eaux ils vont tomber, sans y songer, dans l’abîmé de l’éternité; et comme ils ont oublié Dieu, ils se sont aussi oubliés l’un l’autre: aucune consolation n’est donnée ni offerte; chacun ne voit que sa mort , ne regrette que sa vie; c’est l’égoïsme à sa dernière heure.” Cf. Bazin, Géricault, I, no. 149, p. 47. 6 D., “De l’exposition de 1819. (Deuxième article),” in: L’Indépendant, Nr. 112, 29. August 1819, p. 3: “mais l’ensemble est confus.” Cf. Bazin, Géricault, I, no. 139, p. 44. 7 Charles Paul Landon, Salon de 1819, 2 vol., Paris, 1819 (Annales du Musée et de l’École Moderne des Beaux-Arts), vol. 1, pp. 65–67, p. 67: “Où en est le centre? à quel personnage paraît-elle se rattacher principalement, et quelle est l’expression générale du sujet? Des cadavres à moitié submergés, des morts et des mourans, des hommes livrés au désespoir et d’autres que soutient un faible rayon d’espérance, tels sont les élemens de cette composition, que l’artiste, malgré le talent distingué qu’on lui reconnaît, n’a pu ordonner d’une manière satisfaisante.” Cf. Bazin, Géricault, I, no. 146, p. 46. 107 《藝術學研究》第一期（2006.06） center. The visual narrative is frozen, fragmented; instead of narratives, we are left with figures, without a hero anywhere in sight. To speak of a heroic protagonist in the face of Gericault’s painting is difficult, if not nonsensical. In his preliminary studies, Géricault had still placed the brig, the Argus, which on the thirteenth day would finally, but accidentally, find the shipwrecked, in the raft’s vicinity, in any case as a concretely visible object [Ill. 2 and 3].8 The decision to minimalize it and push it off into the distance as a tiny point on the horizon that seems to disappear as soon as we catch sight of it, as in the final version of the picture, entails an additional refusal of the narrative content of the image. Another critic professed that his disgust when confronted with the image was caused by the oppressive uniformity of skin color, gesture, and expression, all attesting to one and the same suffering.9 With this he was not only referring to the monotonous and thoroughly monochromatic color—making the painting into something of a chaotic mishmash—but also to the violation of the theory of representing a gradation of manifold emotions in the tradition of Le Brun. As these bodies wavering between life and death lose all the coloration that would make up the stuff of living history, they also sacrifice all sense of character and individual, personal expression. The image thus violates or negates all the aesthetic categories that are an essential to history painting, the components that guarantee the genre’s generalizing and universalizing connotations: cohesion (ensemble), order (ordonnance), expression (expression), and unity (unité). The structuring relations that hold the world together are thus abandoned. The picture is thus 8 Théodore Géricault, The Sighting of the Distant Argus, 1818, Oil, 37,5 x 46 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre. Théodore Géricault: The Raft of the Medusa, 1819, Oil, 65 x 83 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre.