Art History
All of those great leaps in the advancement of art made by the ancient Greeks were little more than clever use of gorgon heads. The “Golden Ratio”? More like the “Gorgon Ratio”.
Don’t feel too bad if you didn’t know about this sort of thing, it’s secret art school stuff. We learn it in our first semester art history class.
The story of Medusa is a tragic one, as is the case for many of the monsters of myth, though the early tales spoken of her in Ancient Greece were more simple (they state that she was one of the offspring of marine deities, born as a monster and lived as a monster), there is a more compelling version related by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. It goes like this:
At one time, Medusa was one of the loveliest young women in all the land and her hair was what she loved the most. Being such a fetching creature, she caught the attention many men, but none so powerful as the mighty lord of the seas, Poseidon. One day, whilst visiting the temple of Athena, for she was a priestess to the goddess, Medusa encountered the God of the oceans and a terrible event occurred that would change her life forever. Poseidon and Medusa lay together there in the temple, a sacrilegious act in the eyes of the Goddess of Wisdom. The enraged Athena, a strong and willful woman, decided to have revenge.
There was little Athena could do to another member of the Pantheon of gods. Poseidon was a powerful deity and a rival of hers, but this human woman who dared to enter her temple, to don the mantle of the priesthood, and to violate it with such crude acts would be punished. By the will of Athena, Medusa became a gorgon, scaled and hideous to behold, her mouth full of serpent’s fangs, her eyes would turn men to stone, and her hair, her beautiful hair that she had loved so much, became a mass of writhing snakes, each with a mind of its own, always snapping, always restless. Medusa would never again pride herself on her looks and that pride would never lead her to commit such acts before the eyes of the goddess again.
For many years, Medusa lived ashamed and horrified by her appearance. Her rare visitors were immediately turned to stone before her petrifying gaze, until the arrival of the great hero Perseus. It was he, with the magical gifts received from Athena over the course of his adventures, who ended the life of Medusa, beheading her and stuffing her head in a sack.
The story says that heroic Perseus eventually offered the head to Athena who placed it on her shield, the Aegis, and that it became emblazoned with the head of the deadly Gorgon woman.
I suppose that could be true, but maybe that head got around a little bit more, eventually making its way to the art world where it really made a splash.
You know what they say, nothing is truly set in stone.
Discussion (27) ¬
…This is genius!
XD LOL Now everything is clear to me! Those cheaters!
That makes sense. So much sense that it’s horrible.
Reminds me of that Greek legend. A man carved a statue of Venus (Aphrodite?) and falls in love with it. I think the Godess visits him (I guess to question his sanity) and he says turn me into stone holding her and instead she makes the stone into human flesh…my memory is HORRIBLE. Greek mythology was high school english class that was- dang 17 years ago. I know what I’m reading this weekend. XD
http://www.happletea.com/2010/12/17/a-dream-come-true/
I totally forgot about that comic. See this is what happens when you don’t print a book! I can’t re-read these on the train ride into work or while sitting on the can. 🙁
That would be the legend of Pygmalion, which served as the inspiration for George Bernard Shaw’s play of the same title, which in turn was adapted into the musical My Fair Lady.
Which was then subtly ripped off by countless romantic comedies including Crazy Stupid Love, which had Kevin Bacon in it.
How many separations was that..?
Four by my count.
Kevin is a wizard, only explanation.
OH DRAT.
He didn’t smile ._.
At least he didn’t blink!
Little known fact: all men in ancient Greece had circular owl heads attached to their groins.
Whenever the tastefulness of a comic to the general populus is in danger, censorship owl will be there!
Do not taunt happy fun god.
This comic rocks. I’m guessing they only got the severed Medusa head around the Hellenistic Period then?
Man, Athena… For a goddess who is supposedly renowned for her supposed wisdom, she sure is wrathful when she wants to be. (re: Arachne)
Considering she was literally a headache for her dad, Zeus, she probably wasn’t the most social goddess.
Also, it could be said that this particular statue…
*sunglasses*
rocks.
But I already used that pun. :I
Drat, you’re right.
I may just be ill-informed, but didn’t Poseidon rape Medusa in the temple?
Actually, I think you’re right. There are a few different versions of the story, I know one of them says she was raped and I do believe it was Ovid. There are too many myths in my brain to keep them all straight! I’ll look through the metamorphoses and make adjustments when I get home 🙂
…so, wait. Athena punished a woman for being raped? Holy frack, the Greek pantheon are assholes.
We have the Titan Chronos (Kronos?) who tried to eat his children rather than let them overthrow him, the god Zeus who married his sister and then cheated on her with every woman he saw, the god Hades who kidnapped his own neice and married her against her will, forcing her to spend nine months of the year trapped in the afterlife with him… The list goes on and on…
I had heard the same tale where Medusa was raped by Poseidon, although I am unsure of the source. One must remember that the greeks were good at a lot of things- one of those things being misogyny and another being patriarchy. You can see this pretty plainly in some of the tragedies- some examples being the whole mess in the Euripidean tragedy Medea, where Jason left her for a princess but it was alright in his mind since he planned on taking her as his mistress anyhow, and in others. It was all pretty normal for them.
One of the really interesting things I remember about Medusa is that she wasn’t always the way that we commonly see her now – the evil monster that is only good for petrification & to be used as a weapon.
If memory serves she was a deity / spirit in her own right for a while, where she had a belt of snakes and had a more ‘ogre’ or ‘oni’ style of face. She was all about ugliness, with boar tusks and staring directly out of the painting.