Medusa
Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) (1571 to 1610) · about 1597 to 1598
A severed head screams at you from the surface of a round shield. Snakes writhe in place of hair, the eyes are wide with terror, and blood spurts from the neck in thick red jets. This is Medusa, the monster of Greek myth whose gaze turned people to stone, at the instant after Perseus has cut off her head. Caravaggio painted her on canvas stretched over a real convex parade shield, and the curve makes the head seem to push out toward you. The painting was commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte as a gift for Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, around 1598.
The trick of the picture is the surface. Caravaggio painted the background in flat green so that the shield reads as polished metal, then modelled the face with strong light from the upper left and cast its shadow onto the shield itself, as if the head were a solid object attached to it. Look at the snakes, studied from real water snakes and painted in loops that catch the light. The face is widely thought to be a self portrait, the painter looking in a mirror and screaming, which fits the myth: Perseus used a mirrored shield to see Medusa safely.
The shield was made to hang in the Medici armoury beside a suit of Persian armour, a diplomatic gesture from a cardinal to a duke. It was recorded there in 1631 and moved to the Uffizi in the eighteenth century. A second, earlier version exists in a private collection, but this is the one the world knows. The tradition that Medusa's head was set on Minerva's shield made the subject perfect for a prince who wanted to be seen as wise and unbeatable. A memorable detail is that Medusa's eyes look down and away, as if she is watching her own death.
Did You Know? Caravaggio painted the screaming face while looking in a mirror, so Medusa is almost certainly the artist's own self portrait.
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