Medusa ….. Finished at Last!

This one has actually been finished for two weeks but I hadn’t enough energy to take photos! 

MEDUSA 

Continuing my theme of Bacchanalia, Medusa is the first one of my vines with leaves. Her twisting, snaking branches reminded me of Medusa's serpentine ''hair''. 

As always the mythology behind the Gorgon Medusa is complicated and contrary; some describing her as a monster and some as a beautiful maiden, what seems to be the gist of her story is the ability to turn people who look at her into stone. Legend has it that Perseus killed her by using a reflective shield given to him by Athena however Medusa's head still retained the power to turn those who looked at it into stone.

You know that I like it when things go full circle and here is one of those quirks that I like, I posted a wee post about Green men a couple of weeks ago. Green men are carvings of foliate heads, usually found on medieval churches throughout Europe. Although nowadays we still don’t know the symbolism behind the pagan Green men, one idea is that these often scary heads is that they were to ward off evil, well guess what Medusa's heads were used in exactly the same way. 

The Gorgoneion (Medusa’s head, with snake like hair), was used in Greece, Rome and found in Knossos as a ritual mask, protective amulet and on houses and buildings to scare away evil. One of my favourite representations of Medusa is by Caravaggio! That painting is enough to turn anyone into stone!