A seam would absorb paint and reflect light differently across the surface, and would not lie flat. The way you can tell if the painting is one piece is that there is no seam in the painting. Shipbuilding countries were the first to adapt to using sail cloth canvas as painting surfaces. Before canvas, they used wood panels, or walls, or ceilings. In fact, artists started painting on canvas because sail cloth was readily available and provided a strong surface if stretched over a frame. It is very easy to have a large loom for heroic pieces like ths. The looms were commonplace-remember that all the ships had to have huge sails because they ran on wind power, although the canvas for this would have been made on wider looms. There were great looms that were used for building (weaving) canvas. After the fall of the First Empire in 1815, the Bourbon kings had returned to power and the shipwreck discredited the newly restored monarchy: the captain of the Medusa had obtained his position on the strength of his connections with power rather than his competence in fact, he had not sailed at all in the past twenty years! Unable to prevent the ship from running aground, he left part of his crew to drift on a makeshift raft.No, it would be one piece! You could immediately tell if pieces were joined together. This painting, first exhibited in 1819, was more than just a depiction of a tragedy. The painter chose the bleakest moment, when they saw the ship that would eventually rescue them sailing away in the distance. The figures in the scene are not mythological heroes or brave warriors, but victims of a shipwreck, forced to resort to cannibalism to survive. The resulting composition was a history painting, but based on a recent event rather than a ‘prestigious’ historical subject. Unusually for his period, Géricault began to work on this huge painting without having been commissioned. Jacques-Louis David, The Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon and the Coronation of the Empress Joséphine in Notre-Dame Cathedral on 2 December, 1804 Room 702 (Salle Daru), Denon wing, Level 1 Compositions by the greatest names in French painting – such as Jacques-Louis David, Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix – are now displayed side by side on the walls. The rooms originally presented works by 17th- and 18th-century French masters, with large 19th-century paintings added later. The predominantly brown tones of the paintings stand out against the red background. The Red Rooms were part of Napoleon III’s project to expand the museum and give it splendour worthy of his imperial status the red and gold decoration, created in 1863 by Alexandre Dominique Denuelle, contributed to that goal. That is the effect that these huge history paintings can create – so it was important to find an exhibition space that would do them justice. At six metres high and almost ten metres wide it is certainly an impressive work, giving the viewer a sense of actually attending the ceremony. Napoleon I reportedly exclaimed ‘ One can walk through this painting!’ when he saw Jacques-Louis David’s depiction of his coronation ceremony. The largest French paintings in the Louvre
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