Perseus and Medusa Round 3

Painting is one of the oldest forms of art and is also one of the types of art with the most variance in style.  The paintings I have chosen are more or less created in the classical style and rage in dates from the time of Pompeii to the early 1920’s.  There are hundreds of paintings of Medusa and Perseus but I chose these three because each one is vastly different from the other in every way; composition, color, location, and what parts of the story they are illustrating.  It’s been really interesting to see how popular this story has been just throughout art history alone, and not to mention all the parody art I have found this semester.

            The first painting was found on a wall in Pompeii.  The artist is not known but the fact that the painting is still in amazing condition and survived the eruption is remarkable.  

 

In this painting Perseus is shown after he has slain Medusa and has saved Andromeda from the sea monster created by Poseidon to attack her for being vain.  He used the head of Medusa to paralyze the sea monster and turn it to stone, then again to freeze her old suitor, and then again to freeze King Akrisios before giving the head to Athena.  Athena placed the head of Medusa onto her shield to scare off her enemies.  I like how different this painting is; how Medusa’s head is on a stick, how the sandals look like they are a part of his feet and legs.  What is most extraordinary about this painting is how it was preserved in the eruption at Pompeii; the color and quality for such an old work is just unbelievable.

            Caravaggio made this painting of Medusa in 1597.  It shows her decapitated head suspended in space with the blood still pouring from her neck.  The look on her face that Caravaggio has captured is more realistic than some of the other representation I have found.  Perseus crept up on her while she was sleeping and beheaded her; she isn’t going to look furious or hateful, she would look more surprised because she was attacked while she was asleep. 

 

The circular composition is a very interesting choice for this subject and I think it makes this more compelling.  It keeps you in the image and makes you confront the picture.  You cannot escape Medusa’s gaze and are forced to experience her surprise in being killed.  What also makes this painting so intriguing and relatable is the fact that it looks like a portrait of a real person, possibly even someone you know.  She looks more human in this than she is described in the legend and this does nothing but help the painting.  The emotion is expertly conveyed and I feel is one of the most successful paintings of Medusa’s fate I have seen.

            This painting is amazing in its own way because of the way the story is all mashed together again in the single frame.  This painting was created in 1922-25 by John Singer Sargent and has an almost graphic and flat quality to the work.  There are definitely tonal ranges and a three dimensional quality to the work by the use of perspective but the way the color is laid out it seems to have flatness and graphic outlining. 

 

It looks as though Perseus rode the Pegasus into battle and that’s not what happened.  The Pegasus didn’t happen until after Perseus killed Medusa.  Also it is not Perseus that tames the Pegasus; it is another hero from another tale.  This also shows him handing the head of Medusa off to Athena, which he does later in the story.  What is so interesting is the use of putting different aspects of a story together again in the same frame even though there is room to separate them. The clouds of smoke could also be from Medusa dying and Pegasus being born, but regardless, it’s still mashing the story together to fit one frame.  Perseus is shown again as a younger man with an idealized body which is very deeply rooted in the history of Greek interpretations of people in art.  I think it’s very interesting that even thousands of years later we are still employing the Greek ideal of the idealized body as the image of heroics. 


 http://jssgallery.org/paintings/mfa/perseus_on_pegasus_slaying_medusa.htm
 http://allart.biz/photos/image/Michelangelo_Caravaggio_79_Medusa.html
 http://www.laits.utexas.edu/moore/rome/image/perseus-and-medusa