Oil & acrylic painting on canvas,
111cm x 61cm (h x w).
Unframed and ready to hang. Free shipping within Australia.
 
This painting of Medusa is inspired by Gustav Klimt's painting of Hygieia which formed part of his ceiling painting called Medicine. It was commissioned by the University of Vienna and presented in 1901. It was later destroyed by retreating German SS forces at the end of the second world war and only a few photographs and some preliminary drawings remain.
 
Hygieia is the Greek goddess of health and hygiene, and is the daughter of the god of medicine. Hygieia's symbol is a goblet or chalice with a snake twined around its stem. Klimt has depicted her with a gold Aesculapian snake around her arm and the cup in her hand: thus her arm acts as the stem of the chalice. The Aesculapian snake is non-venomous and non-threatening to humans and is a symbol of good health.
 
In my painting of Medusa, I have used a female figure similar to Klimt’s, but shown her with a head of green snakes, while keeping the gold snake around her arm, and repurposing the cup as a shallow bowl to provide water for her pet snakes. Like most of Klimt's women, she is attractive and powerful. She looks down at the viewer, with her all-knowing gaze.