Richmond
62.1
Attic Red-Figure Hydria
Collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine
Arts, Richmond, The Williams Fund (62.1.1)
Attributed to the Nausicaa Painter
Ca. 450 B.C.
Height: 45.5 cm. Perseus beheading Medusa
The myth of Perseus beheading the Gorgon Medusa was especially
popular in Proto-Attic and early Attic black-figure, a century and more before
the period of this vase. After that the scene recurs only sporadically, and this
version is one of the latest known. In Archaic art, the moment in the story most
often depicted is the chase after the beheading, when Perseus flees with the
severed head, pursued by Medusa's sisters. In only a few red-figure scenes of
the mid-fifth century, including this one, do we see the hero sneaking up on his
victim as she sleeps.
Medusa is very much the center of attention in the composition, the
focus of all eyes. She sleeps peacefully against the trunk of a tree, her left
wing apparently hidden by the rising ground. The frontal face is a relatively
rare occurrance in Attic vase-painting and is generally restricted to a few
specific purposes, including the depiction of sleeping figures. Medusa wears a
short pleated
chiton with short sleeves. In
the course of the fifth century she gradually loses the monstrous features that
had characterized her since her first appearances in Greek art in the seventh
century. Eventually she will emerge as a beautiful young woman, as on a famous
pelike in New York (
ARV2, 1032,55). On
the Richmond vase the transformation is not complete, as indicated by the broad
nose and huge gaping mouth, with protruding tongue.
Perseus approaches stealthily from the right, holding in his left
hand the
kibisis, or leather pouch in which he
will carry the head, and in his right a sickle (
harpe). Behind him stands his guide, Hermes, identified by his
traveller's hat (
petasos) and
kerykeion. Perseus seems unaware of the power of Medusa's
gaze to turn men to stone, for he does not, as on most vases, avert his eyes.
Athena stands opposite Perseus and reaches out her right hand, as if
cautioning the hero against making noise and awakening the Gorgon. She wears a
large Corinthian helmet and carries a spear. Her aegis, which will later carry
the Gorgon's head as an apotropaic device, is not seen. Behind Athena sits a
stately bearded figure, wearing a fillet in his hair and holding a curved stick.
In his full publication of the vase, K. Schauenburg suggested that he is Atlas,
who in some versions of the myth was a victim of the Gorgon's gaze and thus gave
his name to a mountain. Here he would be a kind of local divinity or
personification, of a type that occurs in later red-figure - usually seated and
off to one side - alluding to the mountain setting.
The Nausicaa Painter is one of Beazley's "Later Mannerists." His real
name is given by a signature on an amphora in London (
ARV2, 1107,7), Polygnotos, but since the name is
shared by two other vase-painters, as well as the famous wall painter, the
nickname taken from his painting of Odysseus and Nausicaa (
ARV2, 1107,2) has been retained.
Bibliography
ARV2, 1683, 48 bis;
Para., 452;
C. Alexander, in Art News
61 (1962) 29;
ibid., in
Arts in
Virginia 2 (1962) 9;
K.
Schauenburg, ``Zu einer Hydria des Nausikaa-Malers in Richmond," Kunst in Hessen und am Mittelrhein 3 (1963)
3-15;
Ancient Art in the Virginia Museum (Richmond 1973)
95.
