There is nothing here but a head, severed but still conscious, an image of one of the great nightmares, that of the decapitated head aware of its disembodied condition.īlood pours from it in thick streaks. This recognition is so devastating that it has destroyed Medusa's connection with reality, with the body, with any external context. This is both a horrific and horrified image, as the eyes of the gorgon are fixed forever on the terrible realisation of who he or she is. The hero Perseus used a shining shield from the goddess Athena to avoid looking at Medusa directly, then decapitated her.ĭistinguishing features: She - or he, as Caravaggio's model is a male youth - is portrayed in the very moment of self-recognition. Such was her repulsiveness that anyone who looked at her was turned to stone. Subject: This severed head is that of Medusa, the gorgon who had hair of living snakes. In his naturalistic mode, Caravaggio makes the impossible real and the real a lurid dream. Later, Caravaggio was to change his manner, becoming more elusive, his space smokier, his figures less seductive. We are so confused by the warm flesh of the angel in The Rest on the Flight into Egypt that we accept the strangest thing about him: he has wings we are so fixated on the brightness of Caravaggio's compositions that the abstract mystery of their setting only registers unconsciously, as a given of the inexplicable. On the contrary, his art is fantastic and his representation of the natural world uses mimesis to intensify erotic and religious vision. The compelling reality of Caravaggio's painting, however, does not make him a "realist". Artist: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) was known in late 16th-century Rome for the naturalism and lifelike freshness of his painting.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |