78. The Raft Of The Medusa, by Théodore Géricault.
Louvre, Paris.

Wasn't quite prepared for the size of this painting when I first saw it for real. It's massive, the characters all larger than life size, while the second time looking closely for the evidence that it's still actually drying. Apparently Gericault used bitumen as the dark base colour, which never truly dries.

But the first time I saw it, probably in Gombrich, or maybe Jansen, I just wanted to be one of those on the raft, even one of the dead ones would have been fine, but preferably one of the nearly dead, and at the end, imagining my body just falling, tragically, and slipping easily enough into the sea. Perhaps I'm the one wearing that most fetching red skirt who's waving his white shirt.