Book part:

Der prekäre Status der Immersion. Grenze und Übergang in Théodore Géricaults Gemälde DAS FLOẞ DER MEDUSA

The aim of my essay is to analyze the specific involvement of the viewer in Théodore Géricault’s large-format oil painting entitled THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA (1819). The condition of its pictorial space has been controversially discussed by scholars, who have even compared the physical-emotional involvement in this space with the immersive effects generated by the institution of the panorama – an increasingly popular mass medium around 1800. Several scholars have suggested that the viewers of Géricault’s oil painting feel totally immersed in it, therefore having the same experience as the castaways. In my essay, I want to render this assumption of total immersion problematic. My central hypothesis is that immersive bubbles are always instable and are pushed to the point of bursting – precisely because of this unstable condition, these immersive worlds and their surroundings are tied closely together and affect each other reciprocally. In this respect, the individual spectators are not totally immersed and do not forget about their immediate surroundings, but remain closely linked to the ‹outside› of the immersive bubble. Events in this bubble have an effect on its outside and vice versa. Focusing on a certain part of Géricault’s canvas – the part where the spectators come into contact with the pictorial space and its narration – I hope to discuss the problematic and unstable status or character of an immersive experience.