The mythological monster Medusa, her sisters, and the other Gorgons, have been featured in art and culture 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, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin and Benvenuto Cellini.
The Gorgoneion, or Gorgon head, known as Medusa, was used in the ancient world as a protective apotropaic symbol. Among the Ancient Greeks, it was the most widely used symbol to avert evil. Medusa's head with its goggling eyes, fangs, and protruding tongue was depicted on the shield of Athena herself. Its use in this fashion was depicted in the Alexander Mosaic, a Romanmosaic 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 to represent the realistic human form of the triumphant hero Perseus. Medusa's head was also depicted to evoke horror by making the detached head the main subject.
19th century
After the French Revolution, Medusa was used as a popular emblem of Jacobinism and was often displayed as a figure of "French Liberty." This was in opposition to "English Liberty," which was personified by Athena. "To radicals like Percy Bysshe Shelley, Medusa was an 'abject hero,' a victim of tyranny whose weakness, disfiguration, and monstrous mutilation become, in themselves, a kind of revolutionary power." Shelley's 1819 poem, On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery was published posthumously by his wife Mary Shelley in 1824. Octave Mirbeau's use of Medusa during his time has also been examined.
Modern use
The image of Medusa's severed head has become one of the most-recognized images from Greek mythology. A representation of Perseus carrying this head has been featured on the cover of a number of paperback editions of Edith Hamilton's Mythology and several editions of Bulfinch's Mythology. Medusa also became a very popular icon in designer fashion, as the logo of the Italian luxury clothing brand Versace portrays a Gorgon head.
Television and Film
Medusa appears in the BBC One series Atlantis before she became a Gorgon. The myth of the Gorgon was the basis for the 1964 Hammerhorror film, The Gorgon, which "abandoned the traditional myth entirely and tried to tell a new story". Medusa was a character in the 1981 film, Clash of the Titans. Special-effects creator Ray Harryhausen used stop motion animation to depict the battle with Medusa. Although "the essential story sticks closer to its sources than any other interpretation", the film takes creative liberties and Medusa's biology differs from "any previous representations, ancient or modern". Medusa is also featured in the 2010 remake of the film, with her face appearing human until it contorts as she turns her victims to stone. Medusa appears in the film, , where she attacks Percy Jackson and his friends as they are looking for the Pearl of Persephone in her garden. When Percy's friends drive a car through a wall Medusa is distracted and Percy decapitates her before escaping. In the film Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, the two masked twins' "peculiarity" is revealed to be that they are Gorgons, with serpentine faces and the ability to petrify. In the Netflix Series, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. A pagan tribe arrived in Greendale one of them was a Gorgon named Nagaina. She turned the seer Rosalind and the Witch Dorcas into stone, they were later turned back into flesh and Rosalind beheaded Nagaina with a sword.
Medusa and her Gorgon sisters, as well as creatures inspired by them, have been featured in gaming since the advent of role-playing games, from Dungeons and Dragons, to God of War, to Final Fantasy. Medusa is the primary antagonist in the Nintendo Entertainment System game Kid Icarus and the earlier levels of the Nintendo 3DS game . Medusa appears as a recurring enemy in the Castlevania series. Medusa appears in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, where she is implied to be a human that has been transformed by the effects of the Apple of Eden. Gorgons appear as enemies in the 2006 game Titan Quest.
Music
Thrash metal band Anthrax dedicates a song to Medusa on their album Spreading The Disease. Annie Lennox, titled her UK no.1, 2nd solo album Medusa. An album of cover-tunes, which contains no songs named Medusa. British band UB40 produced a song for their 1980 album, Signing Off, drawing unfavorable comparisons between the mythological monster and United KingdomPrime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
