Medusa

Medusa, created approximately between 1597 and 1598, is one of Caravaggio's most astonishing inventions. The artist depicts the instant immediately following the Gorgon's decapitation by Perseus. Her severed head appears isolated against a dark background, her mouth open in a scream, her eyes wide with terror and blood pouring violently from her neck.

Medusa's hair becomes a tangled mass of writhing snakes. Caravaggio combines uncompromising naturalism with the violence of classical mythology, transforming an ancient monster into a figure of extraordinary human intensity. Medusa does not simply appear dead: she seems to experience the horrifying realization of her own death.

The combination of classical mythology, violence, naturalism and optical illusion makes the work one of the boldest experiments of Caravaggio's early maturity and anticipates his extraordinary ability to capture the climactic instant of an action.