Medusa by Caravaggio, 1597

 

 

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Physiognomic expression is also strongly emphasized in Caravaggio's singularly interesting head of the Medusa in the Uffizi, painted on a roundel of wood (sopra una rotella rapportata). Behind the distorted features one can still perceive the family resemblance of this snake-haired demon to the face of the Bacchus, for here too Caravaggio has transformed the reflection of his own face in a mirror into a fantastic image in mythological guise.

His sense of experimentation in the expression of physiognomy, already spectacularly manifested in the Boy Bitten by a Lizard, is here climaxed by convulsive muscular action making the eyes bulge, furrowing the bridge of the nose, and opening the mouth in a scream. Leonardo da Vinci as a youth had painted a Medusa head with a headdress of knotted serpents, called "the most queer and extravagant invention" by Vasari. But he had also made on a round panel of wood, like Caravaggio's, an object which was so horrifying to look upon, according to Vasari, being composed of lizards, snakes, bats, etc., collected by Leonardo in his studio, tha t it reminded one of a Medusa.

This "Animalaccio" was allegedly sold to the Duke of Milan by Leonardo's father. Milan also claimed the famous armorer Piccinino, one of whose masterpieces was a round parade shield centered by a gorgon, presented in 1552 to Charles V. Caravaggio might easily have seen a similar piece, or even a model or copy of it, since Piccinino's shop was still in operation while he was serving as Peterzano's apprentice in Milan.

Representations of the Medusa-head on oblong or, in a more antique manner, round shields were not uncommon in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In all the examples the head of the Medusa plays its classical role as a direct "apotropaion" whose petrifying effect will intimidate and repel the enemy. In a symbolic-philosophic sense, the enemies of man are within himself, the poem, evidently unaware of Ripa's allegorical interpretation, Marino reaches the edifying and at the same time flattering conclusion, so typical of him, that the real Medusa, the true protector of the Duke, is his own valor (la vera Medusa e il valor vostro).

One may wonder how the conception of the painting came about in the first place. We have seen that Caravaggio as an adolescent entertained himself by drawing his contorted face from a mirror. This time, by embellishing his study with a headdress of snakes, he turned it into a fanciful rendering of a Medusa. Cardinal del 'Monte was undoubtedly impressed by its exceptional combination of objective realism and passionate expression. Not since Leonardo had an artist been able to render so strongly the spurting blood and the metallic luster of the greenish patterned snakes, and at the same time to capture the horror in the face of the decapitated Gorgon.

Perhaps, remembering Vasari's description of Leonardo's monstrous contraption in a round frame, the Cardinal had transferred it (Baglione uses the word "rapportata") to a sixteenth-century convex tournament shield, probably already in his possession, as an emblem of spiritual and bodily strength.

The obvious exploitation of the physiognomy in the work itself, in addition to the facial characteristics of the thin dark brows and short stubby nose, relate the Medusa head to the earlier phases of Caravaggio's production. Yet its vigorous plasticity and forceful realism place it after the Boy Bitten by a Lizard, closer to the Giustiniani Amor, the Michelangelesque St. John with a Ram, and not too far from the First St. Matthew. The facial type of the earlier works, although differing in mode and complexity of expression, is basically always the same because it is Caravaggio himself who masquerades behind the changing images.

Print DIGG MIXX!

Peter Paul Rubens "The Head of Medusa" (1617) Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Francesco Maffei "Perseus Beheading Medusa" (1650) Gallerie dell Accademia, Venice

Antonio Canova "Perseus with the Head of Medusa" (1804-06) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Baldassare Peruzzi "Perseus and Medusa" (1511) Villa Farnesina, Rome

La Stampa	Sull">Sull'Arno i riflessi di Caravaggio La Stampa - 26 Jul 2010 at 1:49am Intanto il primo supporter del Caravaggio, a Roma, il Cardinal del Monte, significa: ambasciatore dei Medici, nella capitale. E poi davvero, Ferdinando I a ...
- Notte di Caravaggio a Roma: Ombre e ... Comunicati-Stampa.net (Comunicati Stampa) - 27 Jul 2010 at 3:58am Da non trascurare anche la splendida riproduzione della 'Canestra di frutta' di Finelli e l'allucinata 'Medusa' di Nepenthes. ...
Mythos Caravaggio Kultur-in-Bonn.de - 20 Jul 2010 at 3:58am 1598 entsteht hier das vielleicht erschreckendste wie faszinierendste Werk: Die Medusa. Ebenfalls aus den frühen römischen Jahren Judith und Holofernes ...

  

Visitors Comments on Medusa by Caravaggio

Blood gushing out of it's severed neck... Wow, thriller painting!

Posted by: Calin | May 03, 2010 - 01:44 AM

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