0002Achilles_Westmacott

ogcma@byu

ClCv241

Mastery

MythMatters

Gallery
Ovid Met.

Perseus slays Medusa, a metope from Temple C at Selinunte, ca. 540 BC

The image was scanned from ML p. 552.

Ancient Greek relief sculpture depicting Heracles strangling the Nemean Lion, witnessed by Athena and Iolaus.

ML p. 552 “frontality of the figures compels the viewer to confront the horror of Medusa’s face and necessity for Perseus of avoiding her gaze.”

Athena helps Perseus, as she commonly fosters the actions of other heroes.

Pegasus, the offspring of Poseidon and Medusa, springs from the arms of the gorgon at this moment of her decapitation. Chrysaor, the parent of virtually all notorious mythical monsters, is also born of this violent act (but not represented here).

Medusa, or other Gorgons’ faces, were commonly depicted in archaic Greek art.

The myth of Perseus and Medusa is among the favorites of archaic Greek artists.

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.