Ancient Times To Renaissance
The Medusa or Gorgon head, the Gorgoneion, was used in the ancient world as a protective apotropaic symbol. Among the Ancient Greeks, it was the most widely-used image intended to avert evil. Medusa's goggling eyes, fangs and protruding tongue head were depicted as mounted on the shield of Athena herself. Its use in this fashion is depicted in the Alexander Mosaic, a Roman mosaic (ca. 200 BC) in Pompeii. In some cruder representations, the blood flowing under the head can be mistaken for a beard.
By the Renaissance, artists depicted Medusa's head held aloft by the realistic human form of the triumphant hero Perseus (such as in the 1554 bronze statue Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini) or evoked horror by making Medusa's detached head the main subject (as demonstrated by the 1597 painting Medusa by Baroque originator Caravaggio).
Read more about this topic: Cultural Depictions Of Medusa And Gorgons
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