David Peat

104 From Certainty to UncertaintyOne of David’s masterpieces, The Oath of the Horatii, was completedjust before the Revolution. It depicts the moment when the agedHoratius hands his swords to his three sons who swear to defend Romeagainst the city of Alba. To the right of the painting the women of thefamily are weeping, one is engaged to an Alban, and the other, herselfan Alban, is married to one of Horatius’s sons. This painting became arallying sign for revolutionaries. They saw it as a call to take up armsand fight for the new order, even if this meant division between familyand friends.The extent to which neoclassical representations can serve a societyas propaganda for its worldview can be seen by the scandal unleashedby a painting that did the direct opposite. Theodore Gericaultpainted his Raft of the Medusa in 1882, following the restoration of theBourbon monarchy.In 1816 the French frigate Medusa, bound for Senegal, drifted offcourse while the crew were celebrating the crossing of the equator. Theship struck a reef at high tide and began to sink. Since there were insufficientboats for the entire crew to escape, a raft was made with theintention of towing them to land. This raft was supposed to serve forthe 152 crewmembers but as soon as they boarded, it began to sink sothat food and provisions had to be cast overboard. Naval officers refusedto take command of the raft and, after towing it a short distancefrom the reef, it was cut adrift with the crew still on board, the captainand officers escaping in the ship’s boats. The raft drifted for 12 days,and, without food, the desperate men were forced to resort to cannibalismin order to survive. Of the 152 crew abandoned by their officers,only 12 survived to tell the tale. Gericault paints the moment whena ship (a rescue ship, perhaps?) is sighted on the horizon as one of thecrew waves his shirt to attract the ship’s attention.The painting precipitated a national scandal and exposed corruptionat many levels of the government. Not only had officers abandonedtheir men, but it turned out that the captain, an old and incompetentman, had obtained his appointment through politicalconnections.Whether a painting celebrates a society’s image of itself or exposes