Night Piece from the Closing Scene of 'René' by Chateaubriand

Chateaubriand wrote Ren�, a fictional self-portrait in 1802 in London. In the striking picture by Catel, the shipwrecked wanderer Ren� perches on a rock beneath a Gothic castle against whose walls waves surge and crash. World-weary and melancholy, Ren� voyages in time and space just as the artist does in imagination, but finds no comfort and longs for death.