Mduse

Caravaggio's shield, where the head of the Gorgon is cast dramatically at the center of the a spectacular tondo (now at the Galleria Nazionale degli Uffizi, Florence), fires Redon's imagination for this intense 'noir'. Whilst the baroque master enphasises the violent, theatrical appearance of Perseus' victim, Redon's version is subtly mysterious, frighteningly enigmatic. A tenebrous chiaroscuro apparition, Redon's Medusa is contained within the sober compass of the monochrome. Her legendary beauty, which seduced Poseidon, is denied in favour of her new surreal, ambiguous features. Her mythological attribute, the hair turned into snakes by Athena, loses the traditional, terrifying precision - in Redon's drawing, the snakes are sinuous, symbolic lines tying the disembodied head to an invisible background.