References to Medusa’s beauty 8. Pelike (jar) with Perseus figure pelike, Medusa, now wingless beheading the sleeping Medusa. can be traced as far back as early Attributed to Polygnotos. Greek and nude from the waist up, and fifth-century b.c. poetry—Pindar, for (Attic), Classical, red-figure, with an agonized expression on her ca. 450–440 b.c. Terracotta, instance, speaks of the “beautiful- face, gestures dramatically as she ⅞ in. (47.8 cm), Diam. 13 ½ in. cheeked Medusa” (Pythian Ode H. 18 pleads for her life (fig. 9). Centuries (34.3 cm). Rogers Fund, 1945 12.16)—and scholars have long sur- (45.11.1) later, depictions of the episode, such as an eighteenth-century etching mised that a lost monumental wall painting was the inspiration for this and other by Alexander Runciman (fig. 10), likewise similar contemporary depictions of the myth.15 attempted to provoke pity in the viewer for the The act of beheading a beautiful sleeping maiden monster’s impending demise. After the fourth seems rather unheroic, however, and it is unclear century b.c., Medusa’s decapitation and the whether the scene on the Polygnotos vase is ensuing pursuit of Perseus by the Gorgons ceased intended to elicit sympathy for the monster or to be illustrated, while subsequent episodes in the myth—such as the rescue of Andromeda, laughter at the hero.16 In the late Classical period the trend toward which predominates in Roman art—gained in humanization and feminization intensified while, popularity.17 Gorgoneia were ubiquitous until the end of at the same time, the violence of Archaic representations of the beheading returned. On a red- antiquity, appearing on temples, artisan work-
9. Pelike with Perseus beheading Medusa. Greek (Attic), red-figure, 360–350 b.c. From Pantikapaion (modern Kertsch). Terracotta, H. 9 ½ in. (24 cm). The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (P.1851/52 6)
10. Alexander Runciman (British, 1736–1785). Perseus and the Sleeping Medusa, 1774. Etching; plate, 6 ⅜ x 9 ⅞ in. (16.3 x 25.2 cm). The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1969 (69.574.14)
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