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Cultural Depictions Of Medusa And Gorgons
The mythological monster Medusa, her sisters, and the other Gorgons, have been featured in art and culture spanning from the days of ancient Greece to present day. Medusa has been variously portrayed as a monster, a protective symbol, a rallying symbol for liberty, and a sympathetic victim of rape and/or a curse. She is perhaps best recognized by her hair of living snakes and ability to turn living creatures to stone. Medusa is an ancient icon that remains one of the most popular and enduring figures of Greek mythology. She continues to be recreated in pop culture and art, surpassing the popularity of many other mythological characters. Her likeness has been immortalized by artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Peter Paul Rubens, Caravaggio, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, and Benvenuto Cellini.Wilk, ''Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon'', pg. 200 Ancient times to the Renaissance The Gorgoneion, or Gorgon head, was used in the ancient world as a protective apotropaic s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caravaggio - Medusa - Google Art Project
Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of his life he moved between Naples, Malta, and Sicily until his death. His paintings have been characterized by art critics as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting. Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism. He made the technique a dominant stylistic element, transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light and darkening shadows. Caravaggio vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture, and death. He worked rapidly with live models, preferring to forgo drawings and work directly onto the canvas. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Mosaic
The ''Alexander Mosaic,'' also known as the ''Battle of Issus Mosaic'', is a Roman floor mosaic originally from the House of the Faun in Pompeii (an alleged imitation of a Philoxenus of Eretria or Apelles' painting, 4th century BC) that dates from . It is typically dated in the second half of the century between 120 and 100 B.C. It depicts a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia and measures . Honour, H. and J. Fleming, (2009) ''A World History of Art''. 7th edn. London: Laurence King Publishing, p. 178. This work of art is a combination of different artistic traditions such as Italic, Hellenistic, and Roman. The mosaic is considered "Roman" based on the broader context of its time and location in relation to the later Roman Republic. The original is preserved in the Naples National Archaeological Museum. The mosaic is believed to be a copy of an early 3rd-century BC Hellenistic painting.Woodford, Susan. (1982) ''The Art of Greece and Rome'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The University Of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including '' The Chicago Manual of Style'', numerous academic journals, and advanced monographs in the academic fields. One of its quasi-independent projects is the BiblioVault, a digital repository for scholarly books. The Press building is located just south of the Midway Plaisance on the University of Chicago campus. History The University of Chicago Press was founded in 1890, making it one of the oldest continuously operating university presses in the United States. Its first published book was Robert F. Harper's ''Assyrian and Babylonian Letters Belonging to the Kouyunjik Collections of the British Museum''. The book sold five copies during its first two years, but by 1900 the University of Chicago Press had published 127 books and pamphlets and 11 scholarly journals, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death and he became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets including Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats. American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem." Shelly's reputation fluctuated during the 20th century, but in recent decades he has achieved increasing critical acclaim for the sweeping momentum of his poetic imagery, his mastery of genres and verse forms, and the complex interplay of sceptical, idealist, and materialist ideas in his work. Among his best-known works are " Ozymandias" (1818), "O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacobinism
A Jacobin (; ) was a member of the Jacobin Club, a revolutionary political movement that was the most famous political club during the French Revolution (1789–1799). The club got its name from meeting at the Dominican rue Saint-Honoré Monastery of the Jacobins. The Dominicans in France were called ''Jacobins'' (, corresponds to ''Jacques'' in French and ''James'' in English) because their first house in Paris was the Saint Jacques Monastery. The terms Jacobin and Jacobinism have been used in a variety of senses. Prior to 1793, the terms were used by contemporaries to describe the politics of Jacobins in the congresses of 1789 through 1792. With the ascendancy of Maximilien Robespierre and the Montagnards into 1793, they have since become synonymous with the policies of the Reign of Terror, with Jacobinism now meaning "Robespierrism." As Jacobinism was memorialized through legend, heritage, tradition and other nonhistorical means over the centuries, the term acquired ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy, while phrases like '' liberté, égalité, fraternité'' reappeared in other revolts, such as the 1917 Russian Revolution, and inspired campaigns for the abolition of slavery and universal suffrage. The values and institutions it created dominate French politics to this day. Its causes are generally agreed to be a combination of social, political and economic factors, which the ''Ancien Régime'' proved unable to manage. In May 1789, widespread social distress led to the convocation of the Estates General, which was converted into a National Assembly in June. Continuing unrest culminated in the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July, which led to a series of radical measures by the Assemb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medusa 1895
In Greek mythology, Medusa (; Ancient Greek: Μέδουσα "guardian, protectress"), also called Gorgo, was one of the three monstrous Gorgons, generally described as winged human females with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Those who gazed into her eyes would turn to stone. Most sources describe her as the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, although the author Hyginus makes her the daughter of Gorgon and Ceto. Medusa was beheaded by the Greek hero Perseus, who then used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. In classical antiquity, the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the '' Gorgoneion''. According to Hesiod and Aeschylus, she lived and died on Sarpedon, somewhere near Cisthene. The 2nd-century BC novelist Dionysios Skytobrachion puts her somewhere in Libya, where Herodotus had said the Berbers originated her myth as part of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including the Iberian Peninsula it continued, together with new styles, until the first decade of the 19th century. It followed Renaissance art and Mannerism and preceded the Rococo (in the past often referred to as "late Baroque") and Neoclassical styles. It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant architecture, art, and music, though Lutheran Baroque art developed in parts of Europe as well. The Baroque style used contrast, movement, exuberant detail, deep colour, grandeur, and surprise to achieve a sense of awe. The style began at the start of the 17th century in Rome, then spread rapidly to France, northern Italy, Spain, and Portugal, then to Austria, southern Germany, and Russia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medusa (Caravaggio)
Two versions of ''Medusa'' were created by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio – one in 1596 and the other in 1597 – depicting the exact moment she was executed by Perseus. He plays with the concept by replacing Medusa's face with his own, as an indication of his immunity to her dreadful gaze. Due to its bizarre and intricate design, the painting is said to complement Caravaggio's unique fascination with violence and realism. It was commissioned by Italian diplomat Francesco Maria del Monte as a means of giving it to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and is now located in the Uffizi Museum in Florence without signature. History In the 1590s Caravaggio had just started becoming a successful and wealthy artist in Rome. However, the time in which he painted the two versions of the Medusa were characterized by several run-ins with the law. In July 1597, Caravaggio and his partner Prospero Orsi became involved as witnesses in a crime that occurred near San Luigi de' Francesi. In one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horror (emotion)
The distinction between terror and horror is a standard literary and psychological concept applied especially to Gothic and horror fiction. ''Terror'' is usually described as the feeling of dread and anticipation that ''precedes'' the horrifying experience. By contrast, ''horror'' is the feeling of revulsion that usually ''follows'' a frightening sight, sound, or otherwise experience. Terror has also been defined by Noel Carroll as a combination of horror and revulsion. Literary Gothic The distinction between terror and horror was first characterized by the Gothic writer Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823), horror being more related to being shocked or scared (being horrified) at an awful realization or a deeply unpleasant occurrence, while terror is more related to being anxious or fearful. Radcliffe considered that terror is characterized by "obscurity" or indeterminacy in its treatment of potentially horrible events, something which leads to the sublime. She says in an essay pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perseus With The Head Of Medusa
''Perseus with the Head of Medusa'' is a bronze sculpture made by Benvenuto Cellini in the period 1545–1554. The sculpture stands on a square base which has bronze relief panels depicting the story of Perseus and Andromeda, similar to a predella on an altarpiece. It is located in the Loggia dei Lanzi in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy. The second Florentine duke, Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, commissioned the work with specific political connections to the other sculptural works in the piazza. When the piece was revealed to the public on 27 April 1554, Michelangelo's '' David'', Bandinelli's ''Hercules and Cacus'', and Donatello's '' Judith and Holofernes'' were already installed in the piazza.Shearman, p. 28. The subject matter of the work is the mythological story of Perseus beheading Medusa, a hideous woman-faced Gorgon whose hair had been turned to snakes; anyone who looked at her was turned to stone. Perseus stands naked except for a sash and winged sand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perseus
In Greek mythology, Perseus ( /ˈpɜːrsiəs, -sjuːs/; Greek: Περσεύς, translit. Perseús) is the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty. He was, alongside Cadmus and Bellerophon, the greatest Greek hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles. He beheaded the Gorgon Medusa for Polydectes and saved Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus. He was the son of Zeus and the mortal Danaë, as well as the half-brother and great-grandfather of Heracles (as they were both children of Zeus, and Heracles' mother was descended from Perseus). Etymology Because of the obscurity of the name "Perseus" and the legendary character of its bearer, most etymologists presume that it might be pre-Greek; however, the name of Perseus's native city was Greek and so were the names of his wife and relatives. There is some idea that it descended into Greek from the Proto-Indo-European language. In that regard Robert Graves has proposed the only Greek derivation avai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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