PerseusMedusa1.0063

PerseusMedusa1.0063_Marqueste

ogcma@byu

ClCv241

Mastery

MythMatters

Courtauld Gallery
OGCMA s.v. "Perseus and Medusa"
Ovid Met. 4.614-20, 770-803
Apollod. Libr. 2.4.2-3
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

Laurent-Honoré Marqueste, "Perseus and Medusa," marble, 1903, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

Click above on link for Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek for hi-resolution close-up of the sculpture.

Marqueste captures the passion of Medusa's decapitation, showing it in the moment immediately before. In detail of Marqueste's sculpture (left), the mouths of the snakes (Medusa's hair) resemble the appearance of the gorgon's mouth. The sculptor has given her a human tongue, the snakes' tongues flicker up Perseus' forearm and menace from all sides. Her nudity probably intensifies — in the artist's presentation — the vulnerability of this still dangerous creature. Her eyes are doing their best to look at the hero's eyes, to petrify her assailant. Compare Marqueste's attention to the personalizing, intense moment before the gorgon's death to artists' who capture the aftermath, e.g. Caravaggio, Cellini, or Fehr.

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, 1300 - 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.