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The painting is a landmark in the progress of the romantic fervour in visual arts. The French painter, Eugene Delacroix presented a recent horrifying emotional realism, depicting man 'in extremis' - overwhelmed by the forces of nature beyond his control. Man is fitted against the elements, not in triumph but tragedy. The macabre aspect, an element of Romanticism, is heightened by the dramatic composition, the dramatic lighting picking out figures as in a spot-light. Their flesh has a waxen, deathly pallor, intensifying their helplessness before nature, and their ultimate fate.
The painting is not a literal representation of the actual incident it depicted; rather the artist seems to be deliberately pushing emotion to extremes, and Gericault meant this emotion to be a reflection of what he found within himself.
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