Medusa According to Bernini
It’s not the face of a monster. It’s the face of someone who has seen too much.
This tattoo was made at visionsofecstasy studio in Berlin for @yung_xx_hans.
Looking at this sculpture — Bernini’s Medusa — the first thing that reaches you isn’t terror. It isn’t rage. It isn’t even fear.
It’s sadness.
A deep, quiet sadness that settles before you have time to explain it. Her eyes are almost closed. Her mouth is slightly open — not screaming, not gasping, but caught somewhere between grief and exhaustion. She doesn’t confront the viewer. She seems turned inward, overwhelmed by something already irreversible.
She looks devastated.
This is not the face of a monster. It’s the face of someone who has endured too much. Someone transformed not only by myth, but by trauma. Bernini doesn’t show Medusa at the height of her power or at the moment she threatens others. He shows her after everything. After the story has already happened. After the violence has settled into the body.
The snakes in her hair twist and writhe with restless energy. They move constantly, nervously, as if carrying the panic she can no longer express. There is motion everywhere — except in her face. That stillness, placed at the center of all that chaos, is what makes the sculpture unbearable. And deeply human.
The violence isn’t coming from her.
It’s happening around her.
This Medusa isn’t aggressive. She isn’t attacking. She isn’t even defending herself. She looks like someone carrying the full weight of a curse rather than casting one. The punishment has already landed. What we’re witnessing is the aftermath.
According to Ovid, Medusa had the power to turn anyone who looked at her into stone. But in Bernini’s version — as in one of his earlier interpretations — we see her right at the edge of transformation. Not yet hardened. Not yet frozen. Suspended in that unbearable instant when awareness arrives.
The moment she sees herself.
There’s a poem by Giovan Battista Marino, written in the 1600s, that captures this exact tension:
“I do not know if mortal chisel sculpted me thus,
or, in reflecting myself in a clear glass,
sight of myself made me such.”
It’s a devastating thought. That she isn’t only punished by the gods, but by recognition. As if she looks into a mirror, understands what she has become, and breaks under the weight of that knowledge. Not fear of others — but horror at herself.
That’s the moment Bernini freezes.
Not the monster.
Not the weapon.
Not the myth as spectacle.
But the woman — right before the story locks her into stone. Right before she becomes an image instead of a person.
Right before our eyes, she turns into something permanent.
And we can’t look away.
That’s what drew me to this Medusa as a tattoo subject. The Medusas I tattooed were never about strength, revenge, or power reclaimed. They weren’t symbols of domination. They were about pain — real pain. Layered pain. Pain that doesn’t need to scream to be present.
Pain that only asks to be seen.
In Bernini’s Medusa, there is no triumph. There is no resolution. Only that quiet, devastating pause where everything that has happened finally arrives in the body. A moment so human it makes the myth feel secondary.
That’s what the tattoo holds.
Not the curse — but the cost.
text by nOT@notattoo_berlin in @visionsofextasy studio, Berlin
Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) Medusa- Capitoline Museums in Rome,
References:
Medusa in Mythology
Wikipedia – Medusa (mythology) A comprehensive overview of Medusa's various mythological identities—from the famed Gorgon to other namesakes in Greek lore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa_(mythology)
Liebieghaus – “Medusa 'decoded’” How a rare Medusa head from Naples was color-reconstructed and what the myth symbolized. https://liebieghaus.de/de/node/520
The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Medusa in Ancient Greek Art Medusa’s role in classical art—Gorgon imagery, apotropaic symbolism, and the Perseus tale. https://www.metmuseum.org/de/essays/medusa-in-ancient-greek-art
Medusa in Cinema
Wikipedia – Medusa Against the Son of Hercules (1963) Sword-and-sandal entry with a one-eyed Medusa, loosely tied to Perseus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa_Against_the_Son_of_Hercules
Wikipedia – Medusa (1973 film) U.S. mystery drama set in Greece—shares the name, not the myth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa_(1973_film)
Wikipedia – Vortex, the Face of Medusa (1967) Greece–UK drama with a femme-fatale Medusa analogue on a remote island. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex,_the_Face_of_Medusa
IFFR – Medusa (2021, Brazil) A modern, stylized reimagining of the myth set in a dystopian religious society. https://iffr.com/en/expanded/2022/films/medusa
Viennale – Medusa Satirical/horror lens; a feminist manifesto in a Christian-fascist milieu. https://www.viennale.at/de/film/medusa
Medusa in Art
Bernini’s Medusa (Marble Bust, c. 1638–1648)
Wikipedia – Medusa (Bernini) — Detailed entry covering the creation, context, technical observations, and exhibition history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa_%28Bernini%29 Wikipedia
Capitoline Museums – “Bust of Medusa” Museum documentation: artist (Gian Lorenzo Bernini), materials, dimensions, inventory number, and emotional interpretation. https://museicapitolini.org/en/opera/busto-di-medusa museicapitolini.org
Musei Capitolini – Restoration of the Bust of Medusa — Insights into Bernini’s decision to depict a living Medusa in marble, the symbolic “petrifying” pun of the medium, and restoration methods using multispectral analysis. https://museicapitolini.org/en/infopage/restauration-du-buste-de-m%C3%A9duse-par-gian-lorenzo-bernini museicapitolini.org
The Dream of Rome (Exhibition, 2011–2012) — Highlights the sculpture's loan to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, enabling broader public access beyond Rome. https://museicapitolini.org/en/mostra-evento/dream-rome museicapitolini.org
Capitoline Museums – Hall of the Geese — Contextual reference noting where the bust is displayed within the museum’s layout. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitoline_Museums Wikipedia
Other Notable Artistic Depictions of Medusa
Medusa Rondanini — A Roman, late-Hellenistic or Augustan marble copy of a classical Medusa head, known for its serene beauty. Now housed in Munich’s Glyptothek. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa_Rondanini Wikipedia
Cellini’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa — A politically and artistically significant bronze sculpture (1545–1554) in Florence’s Loggia dei Lanzi, capturing the moment after Perseus slays Medusa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseus_with_the_Head_of_Medusa Wikipedia
Camille Claudel’s Perseus and the Gorgon (1902) — A deeply emotional marble sculpture displaying Claudel’s own portrayal of Medusa’s face, crafted in the wake of her complex relationship with sculptor Rodin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseus_and_the_Gorgon Wikipedia
Luciano Garbati’s Medusa with the Head of Perseus (2008) — A feminist reinterpretation flipping the original myth, with Medusa holding Perseus’s severed head; has become a modern Me Too icon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa_with_the_Head_of_Perseus Wikipedia
