The Head of Medusa (Peter Paul Rubens, ca. 1617-1618, oil on canvas)
Here is a dark Baroque masterpiece. Using a polished shield as a mirror, Perseus has just severed the dreadful head of Medusa, a gorgon capable of turning anyone who sees her into stone. Medusa’s head was subsequently used by Perseus as a weapon to slay the sea monster sent to devour Andromeda–but the weapon proved too dangerous for him to keep so he gave the head to Athena, goddess of victory and wisdom. She set it on her shield (or sometimes her breastplate) and the Gorgoneion thus became a symbol of divine protection and luck as well as a charm for warding off evil.
Through the artist’s imagination, we are allowed to see what Perseus is not: the horrible head of the demigoddess with her countenance contorted in mortal outrage. Despite her death, the many serpents which make up her hair remain alive and infuriated. One even bites her forehead in pique. Where her blood pours on the ground, serpents and worms spring to life. Spiders, scorpions and lizards appear in order to abet the general creepy horror of the scene (as do the stormy clouds and desolate landscape.
Detail
Rubens was the master of using color and motion to express the sensual and the grotesque. The full dynamism of his style is evident in this grisly tableau which simultaneously evokes the drama of earlier Medusa paintings by Da Vinci & Carravagio while also bringing some of the detail and imagination of Flemish still life composition to play.
ferrebeekeeper 
5 comments
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September 11, 2013 at 5:29 PM
makeupartisttara
Amazing painting!!!!!!!
September 11, 2013 at 8:53 PM
Wayne
I wish the credit were mine, but I love Rubens too and I’m happy he gets another rave review.
September 22, 2013 at 7:20 AM
(b)ananartista SBUFF
very interesting
September 30, 2013 at 8:06 PM
Wayne
Thanks!
September 23, 2013 at 4:07 PM
J.J. PRZYBYLSKI
The head of Medusa gets employed by her opposite. Athena, born from the forehead of Zeus, uses Medusas’s repulsive ugliness on her shield. Thus lower nature, which the snakes represent, is put in service of higher nature.
Camille Paglia says that The Virgin Mary is woman stripped of her chthonic nature. One can say the same of Athena. However, the Virgin symbolizes pathos and mercy, and the Patroness of Athens symbolizes war, wit and excellence.
Rubens properly renders Medusa as ugly. However, the painting itself is as beautiful as it is repulsive. This makes it a bit decadent. There is a simultaneous magnification of exquisite craft and foul subject matter. The context of myth gets it past the censors. The painting is eerily exciting. It stirs the very inner snakes and lizards that it is supposed to represent as exorcized by Perseus’ sword. Maybe, Rubens had his own inner-reptiles and, to make his peace, had to paint them with loving care while being true to their slimy riot of appetites.