Month: March 2018

How Brain Plasticity can Direct Life for Better or Worse

/ ginnyburges / 1 Comment
“Neurons that fire together, wire together.” ~ Donald Hebb (Hebb’s Law)

Last week was #BrainAwarenessWeek, and as I find neuroscience a fascinating subject, I thought I’d share my key learning points in a bid to better understand and make the most of the electrical activity that happens within the grey matter nestled inside the cranium.

Your brain can change – it’s called plasticity!

Whether we tend to manifest slightly neurotic, nebulous or nifty neurons, Brain Plasticity (Neuropalsticity) can direct us to achieve our highest potential if understood and developed to positively influence an individual’s life experience.

I can hear Patrick Stewart’s deliberate and deep voice, laden with gravitas, that kicks off Star Trek episodes with the immortal words: “Space, the final frontier….”

I too would like to boldly go where no man has gone before, into my left prefrontal cortex! I’d like to make a case that it’s the six inches between our ears that has uncharted territory, and it’s certainly worthy of exploration. The human brain and psyche still has many secrets to reveal.

Now is a good time to give our neurons a second thought…

Think that affirmations are hooey? Visualisation is fantasy? Mindfulness is a load of rah-rah new age fluff?

I’ve sometimes had my doubts, but science backs it all up.

For me, learning and expanded awareness is a life-long process, and I know from past experience that the mind can be a powerful ally or your own worst enemy. I suspect you, like me, when you have wanted to implement positive change or more empowering habits have sometimes encountered resistance. It feels hard at first with conscious effort.

Oh boy, I’ve sabotaged myself more times than I’ve had hot dinners. However, I do eventually overcome the backlash from my brain; indignant that I’m making it work when it has previously been happily running on automatic.

If there ever was a case for being aware of our habitual thoughts, beliefs, habits and actions, this is it: once the circuitry is thoroughly embedded over time, our brain (doing what it is designed to do in conserving energy), runs those items on autopilot – what is known as Automaticity.

Until recently, Brain plasticity was thought to be a biological process unique to childhood, and that after a certain age brain development halted. Neuroscience has now proved that theory incorrect.In fact, our brains continue to evolve into old age if we take an active process in keeping our neurons firing. Scientist believe that our brains peak in our early forties, but we can use brain plasticity to slow cognitive decline.

The phrase ‘use it or lose it’ certainly applies to our brain cells.

Our brains have the capacity to create new neural pathways and new cells (neurogenesis), the latter being mainly in the memory HQ, the Hippocampus. Neurons are not hardwired like computer technology.  I know that I’d have been up the creek without a paddle if they were!

You’ve most likely upgraded your computer software at certain intervals to ensure smooth running, more speed and improved features. Well, we have incredible biochemical software in our heads which can be continually upgraded; possibly the most complex electrical equipment in the universe…

Our brains consist of around 100 billion neurons (nerve cells), surrounded and protected by ten times more glial cells, which give physical support, nutrition, repair and to some extent they assist neural communication and neuroplasticity.

On average a neuron fires between five and fifty times per second, forming thousands of links with other neurons and the more signals are sent between neurons the stronger they become. A typical brain might experience between a 100 and a 1000 trillion synapses. These hyper connected neural pathways form neural networks.

Imagine a field of wheat, just before harvesting. The tufty wheatears are swaying in the wind. If you walked from one side of the field to the other, you would leave an indentation in the crop. If you took a different route each time you crossed the field the paths would be there, but they would be faint.

If you kept using the same route each time you walked through the crop, the pathway would get flattened and leave a greater visible mark. It’s bigger and stronger than lots of less used paths. I find this a helpful analogy when thinking about neural pathways and brain plasticity.

“A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.” ~ James Allen (As a Man Thinketh)

Through repetition, emotion and visualisation we fire certain neurons together repeatedly, forming new pathways.

Honing habits

Turbo-charging our brain takes work. Our brains evolved over millennia to do five things above all others: ensure survival, control bodily functions, keep us safe, conserve energy and experience pleasure, (including desirable sensory experience).

Our brains take up about 25% of our body’s daily energy pool.

At birth our brains are a blank canvas, a neutral sending and receiving set which does not contain any limiting beliefs, thoughts or perceptions.

When we are little and learning to walk and talk and co-ordinate our bodies we stumble and fall time and again, but we are determined and we eventually develop enough muscle memory, persistence and plasticity to succeed. So when we have mastered walking, talking and riding a bike, it comes to us as second nature, we don’t have to think about it because those strong neural patterns are embedded in our brain.

Even if I haven’t ridden a bike for years I can get back in the saddle and although I may have a wobbly start, I can very quickly find my balance and the plasticity of my brain enables me to reuse that skill.

Constant repetition enforces automaticity. This is great news for productive thought patterns and habits, not so much for disempowering ones.  Deeply held beliefs are re-enforced based on meanings we assign to events and situations. The stronger the emotion the stronger the pathway.

Scientists did an experiment with fleas in a jar. Because the fleas were trapped in the jar and would hit their heads on the lid when they tried to jump out, after a while they stopped jumping so high. They associated jumping with pain. When scientists removed the lid so they could escape they witnessed that the fleas still only jumped to just below the level of the lid. No fleas jumped out of the jar, even though they would have been able to, due to their conditioning.

Our parents, early environment and experiences shaped our thought processes as we expanded our internal ‘map of reality’.

Our habitual thoughts, feelings and actions create a sort of electrical loop, which is made automatic and becomes part of our unconscious expression. Those deeply created patterns run automatically whether they are positive and helpful or negative and self-limiting.

Trauma in childhood can be especially hard to overcome as the networks built around those experiences; thoughts of anxiety, lack of self-worth,  fear and depression reinforce dysfunctional behaviour over time, which can be become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Negative thought investments that we continually make, without often being aware of them, can be counter intuitive for this reason.

The brain will distort or delete anything that does not confirm with our subconscious map of reality, so we always prove ourselves right.

Such partisan and often vociferous political division in America seems to stem from both sides being entrenched in certain belief systems. We see what we are conditioned to see, so in a sense the eyes don’t see; the brain sees.

Behaviour, practice and activity are the primary drivers of change in the brain. The brain is shaped structurally and functionally by everything we do and don’t do. Science has also noted that if the learning involves increased difficulty that it leads to greater neural structure.

Music education

One example of this is learning a musical instrument. When I first began to learn the violin I found it extremely challenging and I would come home from my lesson feeling tired. Eventually I mastered the basic skills, how to read music, first position, bowing, trills, double-stopping, 3rd and 5th position and started taking grades.

After a few years one of the pieces I really wanted to learn to play was Beethoven’s Violin Romance No. 2 (which was on the ABRSM Grade 8 syllabus a few years back).

There were sections I thought I would never master. But one time, I had a Eureka Moment and saw the music in a different way and was able to understand how to play the section I had always got stuck on before. It removed my self-imposed glass ceiling. I can play it pretty well now, but I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered it like a virtuoso.

Whenever I hear it being played I can ‘see’ the notes and move my fingers in the air as if I’m playing it, visualising where I would place them on the fingerboard. I can even play it with my eyes closed and ‘feel’ where my fingers should go.

At one time I had the entire piece committed to memory, but I obviously didn’t play it enough on an ongoing basis to keep firing the neurons, so now I can only remember the first third or so of it.

Now to tackle Bach’s Chaconne for solo violin!

It’s important to practice music correctly as playing a section with a slight mistake again and again will mean that it’s harder to fix it later on because the mistake will become automatic.

Playing music lights up the brain like a fireworks display, and I have touched on this in my post: The Importance of a Musical Education.

Setting goals and implementing new habits

So when we recognise a habit or thought pattern that is no longer serving us and try to replace it with a more constructive one which is sparked in the thinking, conscious mind (the left prefrontal cortext), it can sometimes conflict with hidden beliefs wired into our subconscious and our brain experiences chaos.

John Assaraf eloquently explains this concept:

The new goal is therefore not in alignment with a story we have continually told ourselves, so we might talk ourselves out of doing something new or procrastinate. The ensuing brain confusion can make us a slave to our conditioning if it is self-limiting.

This cognitive dissonance that we experience can keep us stuck.  We have to pay a price to implement new thoughts, behaviours and learning, which is also known as the switch cost. Our brains go through a period of uncertainty, fear and other emotions.

Dr. Srini Pillay, a professor of Neuropsychology at Harvard University and a specialist in brain imagery and best-selling author, says that we must become committed to this new change and convince our brain that the change is essential.

There are various methods to help us rewire a new habit or thought pattern, such as self-talk, positive affirmations and corresponding physical actions. Self-talk is meant to be even more effective when we talk to ourselves in the 2nd person. For example, I might say to myself before a speech to a group of people: “Ginny you’ve got this, your talk is engaging and interesting, it will resonate with the audience and be successful.”

New actions and self-talk changes brain blood flow and increases neurotransmitters such as dopamine. He also recommended activating reward pathways.

When we experience fear the lizard part of our brain is activated, the AMYGDALA. This is our ‘feeling’ and danger processing centre, and yep, you guessed it, our amygdala doesn’t like change!

So these fearful thoughts and feelings that overwhelm us sometimes when we try new things, or find ourselves out of our comfort zone, can cause a sort of ‘earthquake’ in this part of the brain. But because all parts of the brain are connected this has an impact on our left prefrontal cortex, (the Einstein part of the brain) and that can rattle and shake in after-shocks which disrupts mental clarity.

I have certainly experienced this with some challenging circumstances recently which also meant I had experienced severe and prolonged sleep deprivation as well. This caused a huge amount of stress. I wasn’t just stressed, I was distressed. There were times when I felt like I had lost my mind!

Stress

Dr. Pillay confirmed what I had been experiencing, and that is that when we are emotionally stressed and the amygdala is activated, it makes it much harder to think rationally, and tends to trigger our brain to revert to old, well worn pathways and habits.

An obvious example is how someone who was once an alcoholic, but has been sober for many years can spectacularly fall off the wagon when confronted with trauma or intensely stressful situations.  Same with smoking, retail therapy, or any dysfunctional behaviour or coping mechanism.

From all angles, rampant, out of control stress sucks.

He stated that stress is the key to habit health. How we manage it is fundamental to getting the most out of our grey matter. Productive, self-empowering daily habits are more important than strategies.

The first step is awareness, noticing what we are noticing.

“If you believe you can change—if you make it a habit—the change becomes real. This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be. Once that choice occurs—and becomes automatic—it’s not only real, it starts to seem inevitable.”  ~ Charles Duhigg, (The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business)

Developing mental muscle

The human body has a total of 650 muscles at its disposal. If we want to tone our physique or define those muscles further we have to exercise and add resistance to our workouts. We’d also picture in our mind’s eye what we want our body to look like. Athletes and sports people often use visualisation in addition to physical training to enable strong physical and mental prowess.

The same fundamental principle also applies to our brains.

It’s very important to find mindfulness practices that work for us. Meditation with Holosync is a life saver for me, as well as breathing exercises, physical exercise, reading and playing my violin. A hug helps too!

Meditation

“Meditation has also been proven scientifically to untangle and rewire the neurological pathways in the brain that make up the conditioned personality.
Buddhist monks, for example, have had their brains scanned by scientists as they sat still in deep altered states of consciousness invoked by transcendental meditation and the scientists were amazed at what they beheld. The frontal lobes of the monks lit up as bright as the sun!
They were in states of peace and happiness the scientists had never seen before. Meditation invokes that which is known in neuroscience as neuroplasticity; which is the loosening of the old nerve cells or hardwiring in the brain, to make space for the new to emerge. Meditation, in this sense, is a fire that burns away the old or conditioned self, in the Bhagavad Gita, this is known as the Yajna.”
~ Craig Krishna, (The Labyrinth: Rewiring the Nodes in the Maze of your Mind)

This is a simple but effective way to attain an altered state of consciousness very quickly, by Dr. David R hawkins:

Dr. Pillay suggests using CIRCA:

  • C – Chunking down the problem/situation (defining/taking manageable steps when overwhelmed)
  • I – Ignoring mental chatter (employ meditation, mindfulness, joy filled activities)
  • R – Reality check (recognising that ‘this too shall pass’)
  • C – Control check (Understanding that not everything is within our control and letting go)
  • A – Attention shift (Focusing on the solution which also involves epigenetics)

Innercise

Self-empowerment coach John Assaraf devised internal exercises known as Innercises, which can be different according to want you want to achieve. Today we don’t have to contend with the appearance of a sabre tooth tiger in the village, but in the modern world we are vulnerable to a vast array of internal or external stimuli which can trigger our evolutionary fight or flight response. When that happens, blood is drawn away from the prefrontal cortex into the amygdala.

Innercises are effective in the Autonomic Nervous System (in the Hypathalamus), consisting of the Parasympathetic Nervous System and the Sympathetic Nervous System. When we are relaxed and responsive we are in the Parasympathetic Nervous System, where we generally exhibit good judgement and consciously choose how to react.

When we are fearful, emotional or distressed our bodies prepare for survival and Cortisol is released into the blood, via the Sympathetic Nervous System. When this happens we need to actively empower the left prefrontal cortex and limit the time the amygdala is running the show, and therefore activating unhelpful previous neural patterns.

Take 6, Calm the Circuits

Breath in deeply through the nose (from the abdomen not chest) and count to six. Release slowly through your mouth, slightly pursed as if blowing through a straw. You can also say: “I breathe in calmness,” as you inhale and “I release stress and fear,” as you exhale.

Another Innercise is AIA: Awareness, Intention and Action.

Awareness: Take 10 minutes and ask yourself – What are my dominant thoughts, emotions, feelings and behaviours right now? Write them down, note if positive or negative. Pay attention to whether you are behaving in a constructive way. The golden rule here is not to assign blame, shame or guilt, just observe without judgment.

Intention: Now that you are aware of your thoughts, feelings and actions and in a calm state, ask do you want to be in this state, or something more positive? Set your clear intention for what you want. Ask: what if you’re worthy of being your future self?

Action: Do one action you can take to interrupt the dysfunctional pattern. Recognise the ones you want to keep and strengthen those, and let go of the ones you want to release.

I love these short and sweet bursts of inspiration from Dr. Robert Mark Waldman:

There are two reasons we look to upgrade our subconscious conditioning: longing and discontent. These emotions motivate us to change and tell ourselves new stories so that we can experience an expanded version of life expression, to be more fulfilled and joyful.

The ability to be able to translate potential into results is summed up perfectly by Maxwell Maltz, author of Psycho Cybernetics:

“Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. This power becomes available to you just as you can change your beliefs.”

Neuroplasticity matters, because we can never outperform our own self-image.

Helpful aspects of neuroplasticity:

Flex your cortex!

7 ways to make the most of brain plasticity:

  1. Single task! Do one thing at a time and avoid multi-tasking. I used to pride myself on being able to switch between tasks, but in reality I wasn’t doing justice to any of them. Our brains are not wired to do two things simultaneously. The brain toggles using the frontal lobes and this increases stress hormones. Single task for improved mental productivity.
  2. Inhibit information. Whilst the internet has been a massive benefit for humanity, it’s now such a behemoth of content that if not controlled information overload can fry your circuits! The highest performing individuals are the not the ones who know the most, but who know what to block out, inhibit or bounce and focus only on a few things.
  3. Detox distractions. If we’re not careful we can let technology control us. Smartphone addiction is detracting from living. Who wants to live with constant buzzing and beeping? It is said that the average person in a corporate setting works for only 3 minutes without interruption. How can anyone do high level thinking in just 3 minutes? It takes about 20 minutes to recover from a distraction and get back into flow.
  4. Big idea thinking. This is rocket fuel for your brain. To take ideas from disparate sources, learning and various areas of your life to combine them with the rich knowledge and experience you already have and thereby form some generalised higher way of thinking. It means we have to synthesise and interpret life. The meanings we derive are the powerhouse transformative communication. Is learning boring or rote? Big idea thinking makes thinking, memory and learning more robust and increases all levels of brain health. It can increase blood flow by 8-12% so neurons are happier! This state can elicit a 30% increase in speed of neural connection across the executive networks. Reasoning and problem solving is improved. Big ideas are to the brain what push-ups and pull-ups are to the body.
  5. Calibrate: balance mental effort. Don’t waste mental effort on less important items, do the big thinking and important tasks in the first few hours of the day.
  6. Innovate: the brain becomes stale with the status quo, it’s not firing on all cylinders.
  7. Motivate: Motivation trumps talent. It’s what will help inspire us to reach our full potential. It can be elusive, but it’s easier if you are doing something you are passionate about. Innovation fuels motivation which injects our brains with powerful neurotransmitters such as dopamine. It makes us happier and increases the speed of learning.

Dr. McKay also gives us permission to indulge in our neurobiology:

In many ways the body and brain could be viewed as a biological virtual reality suit for our consciousness. Perhaps these scientific ideas and practical exercises will be useful for further exploration and understanding, so that we can all perform at a higher level.

Dr. David R Hawkins teaches about the benefits of the etheric brain after someone reaches a certain level of consciousness, but that’s a whole new post for another day…

We are the drivers and mechanics of the most powerful engine in the world, but it certainly helps if we have an instruction manual!

 “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” ~ Aristotle

What’s in a Painting? Taking a Closer Look at Théodore Géricault’s Masterpiece: Raft of the Medusa (c. 1818-19)

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“The truly gifted individual does not fear obstacles, because he knows that he can surmount them; indeed they often are an additional asset; the fever they are able to excite in his soul is not lost; it even often becomes the cause of the most astonishing productions.” ~ Théodore Géricault

The Raft of the Medusa is not an easy painting to study or appreciate, but it deserves our attention; for we can learn much from the real-life tragic event that inspired it, as well as the feverish dedication and skill with which it was painted.

Measuring a whopping 23 by 16 feet, this epic oil on canvas masterpiece now hangs in a gallery near the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, Paris.

Le Radeau de la Méduse was Théodore Géricault’s most famous and shocking work of art.

Le Radeau de la Meduse by Théodore Géricault c. 1818-19

The Raft of the Medusa portrays a brief moment of euphoria as the men on the raft spot another ship in the distance, hoping and praying to be rescued after thirteen horrific days at sea. The Argus can only just be seen on the horizon.

You can almost hear the men’s hoarse cries in an attempt to draw attention to their desperate plight, mustering their last ounce of strength to shout and wave a stained, ripped shirt. This is their last chance of survival…

Théodore Géricault, a courageous, passionate, Romantic era French painter and lithographer, sadly passed away from tuberculosis at the tender age of thirty three. Géricault didn’t live long enough to see his paining achieve its greatness, but that seems to be the way of things for many artists and creatives.

Probably the ghost of Vincent van Gogh would be flabbergasted (but happy), to know the sums of money passing hands for his prized paintings; or of his universal popularity and posthumous fame. Yet of the prolific oeuvre of 900 paintings he produced in his lifetime, he sold only one:  Red Vineyard at Arles.

It is a curious phenomena. Many artists, composers and writers were under appreciated or misunderstood in their prime… In the spirit of originality they were simply being true to themselves, following their inner compass, regardless of the trends, thoughts and fashions of the time.

Who knows what Géricault might have produced had he been gifted with a few more years to bestow his artistic talent on the world. But in my humble opinion he has earned a place at the table of the greats with this heart-rending work.

The Raft of the Medusa depicts the harrowing and calamitous historical outcome of the ill-fated voyage of the French Navy’s forty gun Frigate Méduse, carrying around 400 passengers (including the new Governor and his wife),  plus various French officials who were en-route to reclaim Senegal from the British.

Wreck of frigate Méduse

The Méduse ran aground on the Bank of Arguin off the coast of Mauritania in the summer of 1816. The shipwreck and its raft tragedy elicited considerable public emotion, making Méduse one of the most infamous shipwrecks of the Age of Sail.

An incompetent captain

Viscount Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys was installed as ship’s captain by King Louis XVIII in a political manoeuvre because of his support for the monarchy after the Bourbon Restoration.

Louis XVIII of France in Coronation Robes by Francois Gerard

The king overlooked the fact that he had hardly sailed for twenty years, and was clearly unsuitable for the posting. It was an act of unparalleled hubris by the French monarch, as Monsieur de Chaumareys proved himself to be incompetent and grossly negligent for the unnecessary deaths of many of his passengers and crew.

The Méduse was not the first vessel to not carry enough lifeboats for all its passengers, and sadly it has not been the last. There were only enough lifeboats to accommodate 250 passengers on the voyage should the need arise. And arise it did.

In his attempt to impress the new governor and important guests, the captain sailed too fast and too close to the shore (ignoring the warnings of a senior crew member), in his bid to arrive at their before the accompanying vessels. Inevitably, the Medusa struck a large sandbank.

Perhaps the ignominy made too big a dent in his pride, as de Chaumareys refused to offload the heavy cannons on board the Méduse so she could be re-floated. Another unconscionable decision with others to follow that would cost more lives.

Stranded off the West African coast, the Méduse listed helplessly. Initially, it was decided that the lifeboats would make two return runs to shore (around thirty miles away) in order to get everyone to safety, and a raft was hastily built, twenty metres long and seven metres wide, to transport the ship’s cargo.

Raft of Méduse at the moment of its abandonment by Alexandre Corréard

However, inclement weather whipped up a storm that hit them on 5th July 1816 and the captain, fearing the Méduse would break apart, gave the order to abandon ship. Seventeen soldiers and crew remained on the ship in order to protect her cargo, while 250 passengers were placed in the lifeboats and 147 souls were packed like sardines onto the raft, which was being towed by the lifeboats.

Human nature always seems to be either at its worst or its best during times of crisis, and there does not appear to be any signs of heroism emerging from this particular historical debacle.

The people in the lifeboats (perhaps fearing for their own lives), cut the ropes towing the raft after a bit, and with barely any food, drink or life sustaining supplies and no way of steering or navigating, the raft drifted into the swell of the Atlantic…

The apparent cruelty and callousness with which they were jettisoned by the passengers in the lifeboats would unleash hellish conditions and unbridled panic on the unfortunate men (and one woman) clinging to the raft, as they rapidly perished through drowning, starvation, suicide, disease, fighting and murder.

Although shocking, it’s probably not surprising that some of them eventually resorted to cannibalism.

The centre of the raft was the safest place and violent attacks broke out as the men clambered and fought to be away from the exposed edges, the prowling sharks and the unforgiving waves…

After thirteen days of being tossed around at sea, one of the accompanying ships, the Argus, saw and subsequently rescued the survivors from what was left of the raft. They found only fifteen men left alive from the 147, and a further five of these died when they reached land, including the last African crew member, Jean-Charles.

Suddenly, here was a historical painting not of heroic deeds, not drawn from ancient Greek or Roman mythology, but of real people struggling with a contemporary disaster, shown to the French nation in the form of Géricault’s brutally visual social commentary on the tragedy.

To add insult to injury de Chaumareys sent a salvage crew back to the Méduse to recover her cargo of gold. The ship had not been broken apart as he had thought, but remained intact, with only three of the seventeen men who stayed aboard still alive after fifty four days.

During his court martial in 1817, de Chaumareys was acquitted on three counts: of abandoning his squadron, of failing to re-float his ship and of abandoning the raft. However, he was found guilty on two counts: of incompetent and complacent navigation and of abandoning the Méduse before all her passengers had been taken off.

The verdict carried a potential death penalty, but de Chaumareys was sentenced to only three years in jail.

However, I do feel the British must have had their fair share of bumbling idiots put in unsuitable positions of power and responsibility by favour of royal or noble patrons, without due consideration to the consequences of their actions.

Even though The Raft of the Medusa must have highlighted further the embarrassment and subsequent attempt to cover-up the shipwreck by the French monarchy, its sizeable depiction on canvas was nonetheless displayed at the prestigious Paris Salon in 1819.

Raft of the Medusa shown in Salon Carre of the Louvre depicting Gericault’s painting on display by Nicolas Sebastien Maillot c. 1831

King Louis XVIII commented: “Monsieur Géricault, you’ve painted a shipwreck, but it’s not one for you.”

Its grisly, visual storytelling wasn’t so far removed from the tenets of the Romantic Movement: to arouse emotions, feelings and passion; reacting against cool, hard logic and depicting individuals in peril. Although Romantic in genre there is still an element of Classicism in the work.

The underlying theme of Romanticism was that not everything could be understood.

“Feel the forces of nature in all of their grandeur and power so you feel insignificant. Only then can you feel part of something bigger.” ~ Edmund Burke

People were smaller parts of a larger, mysterious whole; usually painted at the mercy of the forces of nature in wild and untamed landscapes.

Romantic art works were designed to make people feel overwhelmed, and I think when we look at this painting, the best word to describe the Raft of the Medusa is overwhelming….

Géricault grafted and crafted a work that was overwhelming in subject matter beyond anything that had been painted by anyone before.  It confronts us with strongly visceral material: physical, mental and emotional suffering, all the more poignant for its tiny element of hope.

Despite the painting’s similarities with the historical event it portrays, there are notable differences. For all its authenticity, Géricault may have decided to heighten the drama for aesthetic considerations. There are more people on the raft in the painting than there were left in real life, and the weather was sunny and calm on the day of the rescue, not brooding and stormy. But we’ll forgive him for taking such artistic licence!

“With the brush we merely tint, while the imagination alone produces colour.” ~ Théodore Géricault

The entire Raft of the Medusa project was completed by Géricault in eighteen months.

The right hand triangle of tangled, contorted bodies is crowned by a black man, waving a makeshift flag at the ship on the horizon. Perhaps he was also commenting on slavery, as well as the desire to survive, for Géricault was an Abolitionist.

The scene is dark, it does not hide the madness, desperation and death that these souls experienced, but Géricault still manages to impart some aesthetic beauty into the work. The figures are obviously Baroque in their physical appearance, muscular and of the type you might see in a painting by Peter Paul Rubens (who was a major influence on Géricault).

The lighting is somewhat “Caravaggesque”, after the Italian artist closely associated with tenebrism—the use of violent contrast between light and dark.

It could be said that there is also the influence of Michelangelo if you study the detail of the underworld from his immortal Renaissance masterpiece, the Last Judgement on the Sistine Chapel.

Detail of The Last Judgement by Michelangelo

“Michelangelo sent shivers up my spine, these lost souls destroying each other inevitably conjure up the tragic grandeur of the Sistine Chapel.” ~ Théodore Géricault

A literary influence is also prominently on display in the painting, Géricault’s clever way of making the viewer question what they would do in a similar situation. He does this by depicting a character from a well-known story to his audience of the time: Count Ugolino from Dante’s Divine Comedy.

It is thought he ‘borrowed’ the image from a painting of Ugolini by Henry Fuseli (1741–1825).

Ugolino and his sons starving to death in the tower by Henry Fuseli c. 1806

We see the dolorous, mature, grey haired man, red scarf draped over his head, his right elbow on his knee, sitting hunched in grief and resignation with his left arm resting over his dead son.

Géricault is asking us through these figures representing Count Ugolino and his lifeless son: is hunger stronger than grief?

In Inferno, Dante writes that the prisoners were slowly starved to death and before dying Count Ugolino’s children begged him to eat their bodies.

“’Father our pain’, they said,
‘Will lessen if you eat us you are the one
Who clothed us with this wretched flesh: we plead
For you to be the one who strips it away’.
(Canto XXXIII, ln. 56–59)

 

“… And I,
Already going blind, groped over my brood
Calling to them, though I had watched them die,
For two long days. And then the hunger had more
Power than even sorrow over me”
(Canto XXXIII, ln. 70–73)
Research above and beyond the call of duty!

In his quest to make an impact and accurately depict the events that took place on the raft of the Medusa, Théodore Géricault first read damning newspaper accounts in the Journal des débats which appeared on 13 September 1816, then contacted two survivors from the shipwreck: the cartographer Alexandre Corréard and surgeon Jean-Baptiste Henri Savigny.

They had co-written a book about their ordeal and agreed to meet him and relay their traumatic experiences. He put them up in his home during this time.

Géricault learned that the ship’s carpenter had also survived, and duly invited him to build a smaller scale replica of the actual raft in his studio. He was then able to study the perspective of a realistic scene for his epic painting.

Portrait of the Carpenter on the Méduse by Théodore Géricault

And if you didn’t think that that was enough, he also visited the morgue to sketch and study corpses and cadavers, so that he could accurately portray their lifeless, pallid expressions and complexions.

Géricault  even took the unprecedented step of bringing body parts back to his studio to paint. The stench of putrid flesh must have been overwhelming, not to mention the most unpleasant and macabre nature of this undertaking.

Study of body parts in preparation for the Raft of the Medusa

That he went to such lengths over this painting is almost incomprehensible.

Preparatory work of The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault

Composition and structure

The majority of the raft’s inhabitants are arranged in two pyramid type structures along with the small sail, while the open space at the forefront of the raft makes it seem closer and invites us to step aboard if we dare…

The way the light shines and reflects on the living (and dead flesh), in a brief moment of euphoria as they spot a ship on the horizon is really quite eerie. The large wave on the left threatens to engulf them all before they can be rescued, their situation is still precarious. The sun’s rays illuminating the sky from beyond the horizon offsets the foreboding dark clouds. There is not much left of the raft itself at this stage.

French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix posed as the dark haired figure lying face down at the front of the painting with his arm stretched out in front of him.

Delacroix was a friend and admirer of Géricault, and later painted his famous Barque of Dante along similar thematic lines.

“Géricault allowed me to see his Raft of Medusa while he was still working on it. It made so tremendous an impression on me that when I came out of the studio I started running like a madman and did not stop till I reached my own room.” ~ Eugène Delacroix

The Barque of Dante by Eugène Delacroix

The raft of the Medusa was exhibited in London in 1820 at William Bullock’s Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London, from 10th June until the end of the year, and was seen by around 40,000 visitors. It proved more popular in London, partly because it was hung low to the ground (unlike at the Salon where its high position lessened its monumental impact).

Influences on Géricault for The Raft of the Medusa

French contemporary artists that would have left their mark on Géricault and influenced his approach and execution of the Raft of the Medusa, were Jacques-Louis David, Antoine-Jean Gros and Pierre-Paul Prud’hon.

From Wikipedia:

Several English and American paintings including The Death of Major Pierson by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815)—also painted within two years of the event—had established a precedent for a contemporary subject. Copley had also painted several large and heroic depictions of disasters at sea which Géricault may have known from prints: Watson and the Shark (1778), in which a black man is central to the action, and which, like The Raft of the Medusa, concentrated on the actors of the drama rather than the seascape;

Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley

The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782 (1791), which was an influence on both the style and subject matter of Géricault’s work; and Scene of a Shipwreck (1790s), which has a strikingly similar composition. A further important precedent for the political component was the works of Francisco Goya, particularly his The Disasters of War series of 1810–12, and his 1814 masterpiece The Third of May 1808.

Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (1791 – 1824)

Born in Rouen to a wealthy family, young Theo was first educated in his art by the painter Carle Vernet, in the sytle of English sporting art. Many of his earlier works were mostly of horses or with a military theme, and sometimes combined both.

Théodore Géricault in his studio c. 1818

He was allowed to paint the magnificent horses in their stables at Versailles. Pierre-Narcisse Guérin taught him classical figure composition, but Géricault decided to self-direct his education at the Louvre from 1810 to 1815, copying works by Rubens, Titian, Velázquez and Rembrandt.

His last works were a series of ten paintings of the insane, the patients of a friend, Dr. Étienne-Jean Georget, a pioneer in psychiatric medicine, with each subject exhibiting a different affliction. Five are known to have survived, including the Insane Woman. ‘Les monomaniacs’ portraits are subtle and brilliantly nuanced.

Interesting history of the artist by Dr. Christian Conrad:

In addition to his influence on Delacroix, Géricault’s work had an important effect on Edouard Manet and the future impressionists. JMW Turner even strapped himself to the mast of ship to experience being out in a storm in the quest for authenticity!

Géricault could be considered the pivotal founding figure of modern art.

The event and the painting inspired the German composer Hans Werner Henze, who wrote a suitably epic oratorio on the subject, Das Floß der Medusa.

The powerful presence and authenticity of this work; its scope, its grisly subject matter and enthusiastic, atmospheric rendering will ensure the Raft of the Medusa remains in the cannon of humanity’s greatest art works.

All I can say is I’m glad I wasn’t there! Thankfully lessons were learned from this tragic episode of French Maritime history. The Gouvion de Saint-Cyr Law ensured that promotions in the French military would thereafter be based solely on merit.

“Our whole society is aboard the raft of the Medusa.” ~ Jules Michelet