Gorgoneion
As Gorgoneion ( Greek Γοργόνειον ) refers to that of Perseus the Gorgon Medusa severed head, hence Gorgon or Medusa called that according to Greek mythology Athena as petrifying specter in the midst of their aegis offset and as such carries on its plate.
As a disaster-warding magical protection and deterrent ( apotropaion / horror picture ) it adorns weapons of all kinds, wagons, ships, horse jewelry, city walls, amulets, robes, furniture, sarcophagi, etc.
Development history
Historically, it can be proven that the original type, a demonic grimacing face formed en face ( mask-like ) with sticking out tongue and boar teeth , already occurs in Phoenician art ( Besa type), by Greek artists not before the 7th century BC. Chr. Was taken over and gradually transformed.
Archaic type
In archaic art there is essentially only one type of Gorgoneion, which of course has innumerable variants. Initially, the depiction made little or no use of snakes, but apparently more often with a goatee, and this also with undoubtedly female Gorgons in full figure. The oldest representations of this archaic type can be found analogously in the striding winged gorgon. Snakes as an attribute are absent from the oldest Gorgon depictions, but found their way very quickly, and much more quickly and more generally than they were associated with the grimaceous face of the Gorgoneion. Initially as a snake belt and with a snake in each hand.
The oldest preserved Gorgoneion probably heard of Asia Minor electrum - Stater , discovered during excavations in Parium , the v in the 7th century. Is set. The main features of the basic type are the broadly contorted mouth, which allows the teeth to be seen, the powerful jaws, the protruding tongue, the staring, mostly very large eyes and the more or less circular overall shape of the mask, from which mostly only the chin protrudes slightly . As a rule, the canines are large, like those of predators. The hair is (with a few exceptions) arranged smoothly around the forehead, be it in curls or in wavy sections. Where the Gorgoneion appears in a circle (i.e. especially on coins and inside bowls), the indication of the hair is limited to the hair around the forehead. Otherwise, however, broad braids of hair tend to fall down on the sides. The ears are often adorned with circular earrings.
Medium type
The transition between the archaic (ugly) type and the later beautiful type occurs around the middle of the 5th century BC. The middle type. It is significantly less grotesque and threatening; anything that seems exaggerated is here softened to a far less natural measure. By this time the gorgon had lost its tusks and the snakes were depicted rather stylized. It no longer appears quite as often as in the archaic period, as it has lost its tectonic, decorative character due to its transformation. It no longer covers large bricks and shields. If it appears on a shield, it no longer completely fills the shield, but only appears small in the middle. It disappears from the interior of the Attic bowls, becomes rarer on the bronze handles, and the half-figure no longer appears. On the other hand, through Attic art that came to power, the Gorgoneion now has a more exclusive, more definite relationship with Athena that it did not have before.
The beautiful type
If the previous type had considerably softened the grimace and distortion of the old, but retained it in this moderate form, the one here has completely disappeared. The last remnant of that broad pang has left the mouth, and the face is of pure, flawless beauty. The characterization happens only through the expression, through the formation of the hair and often, but not always, through the ingredient of the snakes. Within this type we can distinguish two series that also followed each other historically. One of them has a beautiful face. This type appears as early as the end of the 5th century (for example the severed Medusa head in the hand of Perseus on the Attic vase Annali dell 'Inst. 1881, tav. F, without any distortion, smooth Hair, without any external markings) and is specially developed in the 4th. But the new type went alongside the middle type, which was still in use, for a long time until it gained control. Towards the end of the 4th century, wings often appear as a new element in the Gorgoneion, which, of course, had occasionally been connected to it as early as the 5th century.
The later art of the second row, the (pathetic) type of which was developed in the 3rd century and has prevailed since then, shows the wonderfully beautiful woman's face, frozen in agony, pathetically distorted ( Medusa Rondanini in the Munich Glyptothek, see fig .; the relief of the so-called Ludovisian Medusa can only be regarded as the head of some dying heroine [A] ), with the tangled, fluttering hair itself taking the place of the snakes tonguing through the hair. The wings are the rule here.
Another transformation of the Gorgoneion should be mentioned - which is one of the most imaginative creations of Hellenic art - the transformation into a sea creature. The cold horror of the sea tide was the guiding thought here. The eyes, large and round, resemble those of the fish with their cold stare. All sorts of marine plants and animals are used on the face and hair.
Silver didrachm from Athens,
approx. 520 BC. Chr.
Wood carving on a door panel
(by Thomas Regnaudin ,
Paris ca.1660 )
Roman floor mosaic in Palencia .
Medusa of Didyma
_02.jpg)
literature
- Levezow: On the development of the Gorgon ideal in the poetry and fine arts of the ancients . Berlin 1833
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cf. commons: Bes and file: Pendant Bes Louvre AO3171.jpg
- ↑ Adolf Furtwängler , Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture , 1893 dated the model to the middle of the 5th century, he had previously dated it to the 4th century, in Roscher, Detailed Lexicon of Greek and Roman Mythology [A]
- ^ Medusa Ludovisi in the Virtual Ancient Museum Göttingen (Viamus).
- ↑ Photo of the complete bowl