The scene is a simple one: Perseus looks forward, and is depicted in profile, fixed on his escape. Lewandowski, Here Perseus has already beheaded the dreaded Medusa, and is making his escape while being pursued by her Gorgon sisters. Figure 2 depicts a standard archaic Medusa scene such as was very popular throughout the archaic period.įigure 2: Attic black-figure dinos (mixing bowl), painted by the Gorgon painter, 600-590BC, Louvre, Paris. In order to appreciate fully the differing presentations, it is necessary to look back at a much more monstrous example of Medusa's role in Greek thought. Her arrival does, however, generate a number of questions: was her new-found beauty genuine? Did the Greeks genuinely begin to pity her? Could she even be considered as a victim? With this in mind, the appearance of the beautiful Medusa in around the 5 th century BC should come as no surprise. As begin to delve deeper into the character of Medusa, we come to realise that she had a much closer relationship with representations of emotion and passion, both of which are reflected in her many and complex artistic representations. As we begin to look at the ancient Medusa, however, we see her as an entirely complex being, and one who performed many roles in Greek imagination and thought. Indeed, it can be safely said that the surviving legacy of Medusa's character is her monstrousness and nothing more. With her combination of human and animal features, and her ability to turn people to stone with a single glance, her appearances in numerous films such as Clash of the Titans (Figure 1) serve to exemplify her monstrosity.įigure 1: Medusa in Clash of the Titans, 2010. If we were to examine the presentation of Medusa in the modern day, we would be in no doubt as to who she is: she is a monster. Keywords: Gorgon, Medusa, pottery, ancient Greece, iconography ![]() ![]() By examining both the pottery itself and leading scholarship on the subject, this article tracks the changing faces of Medusa not simply in a chronological, linear sense, but also in an ideological one, tracing the origins of Medusa's juxtaposing characteristics as both funny and frightening. In tracing her ideological functions throughout Greek antiquity we will examine who the definitive Medusa was, how she was viewed by the ancient Greeks, and what functions she performed in Greek myth and iconography. This paper addresses the differing representations of Medusa on black- and red-figure pottery, providing a broader look at Medusa and her role in the realm of Greek myth and thought, and demonstrating that she was portrayed in differing ways as monster, victim and comic. Who was the real Medusa? And what was she to the ancient Greeks? The myth of Perseus's conquest over the monstrous Medusa is well known however, in Greek antiquity her role varied greatly, and rarely was she simply 'monstrous'. Sarah Bernice Wallace, Department of Classics, University of Reading
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |