Medusa1.0027

Medusa1.0027_Hosmer

ogcma@byu

ClCv241

Mastery

MythMatters

Detroit Institute of Arts
OGCMA s.v. "Medusa"
Classical Sources:
Hesiod Theogony, 270-94
Ovid Met. 4.614-20, 770-803
Apollodorus Libr. 2.4.2-3

Harriett Goodhue Hosmer, "Medusa," 1854, Detroit Institute of Arts, acq. 76.6.

White marble bust of a woman with snakes wrapped around her, looking slightly down and to the left

Much more like Marqueste's than like Cellini's or Carvaggio's, but still very much like unto itself. Hosmer deftly articulates the pathos of Medusa's tragic situation.

Athena transformed Medusa into the hideous Gorgon after she was violated by Poseidon in Athena's sanctuary. (Ov. Met. 4.798 and Hesiod Th. 278)

"A visitor to Hosmer's studio said, 'To fulfill the true idea of the myth, Medusa should be wonderfully beautiful, but I never saw her so represented before.'" (ML 8th ed. p. 553.)

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.