The Gorgon Medusa
In 1816, a French frigate ran aground off the shore of Africa, resulting in the worst disaster in French naval history. Only a fraction of the original passengers survived; the rest perished from drowning, exposure, murder, or cannibalism. The fated ship was called the Medusa, named for the mythological Gorgon monster whose gaze could turn men to stone.
Caravaggio's Medusa
Almost every era in Western art has produced its share of Medusa representations. We have images of Medusa from as early as 660 B.C. on decorative vases. Caravaggio painted the Head of Medusa on a wooden shield that was given in 1601 to the Grand Duke of Tuscany as a gift. Since 1994, fashion designer Gianni Versace has used the Medusa head as his trademark. Philosophers and thinkers, too, have interpreted the Medusa myth differently. Freud conceived the “Medusa’s Head” as a figure threatening castration, and feminism re-appropriated the Medusa as a symbol of feminine fury.
The prevailing image of Medusa in my mind comes from Ray Harryhausen’s 1981 stop-motion creature feature Clash of the Titans. In a highly memorable scene (which I caught on TV many, many Sunday afternoons ago), the hero Perseus (Harry Hamlin) avoids the Medusa’s deadly gaze by studying her reflection in the back of his metal shield. By never looking directly at her, he succeeds in getting close enough to the monster to slay her.
Greg and Ian, the writers of The Wreck of the Medusa have been stalking their own Medusa. Dramatizing personal narratives, journalistic accounts, and courtroom testimonials, as well as re-staging Gericault’s painting The Wreck of Medusa and an obscure play by W.T. Moncrieff titled The Fatal Raft!, they have hunted the shipwreck by dramatizing its reflections and reproductions. The play is experienced as a historical fun-house of mirrors with a minotaur Medusa at the center.
Harryhausen's Medusa