Medusa

The three Gorgon sisters—Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale—were children of the ancient marine deities Phorcys and his sister Ceto, or sometimes (and much less probably), Typhon and Echidna, in each case chthonic monsters from an archaic world.

 This painting above of her head is by an unknown Flemish artist.

Their genealogy is shared with other sisters, the Graeae, as in Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound, who places both trinities of sisters far off "on Kisthene's dreadful plain":

Near them their sisters three, the Gorgons, winged
With snakes for hair— hated of mortal man—

While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her sisters as beings born of monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century began to envisage her as a being both beautiful as well as terrifying. In an ode written in 490 BC Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa".

In a late version of the Medusa myth, related by the Roman poet Ovid (Metamorphoses 4.770), Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, "the jealous aspiration of many suitors," priestess in Athena's temple, but when she was raped, or seduced, by the "Lord of the Sea" Poseidon in Athena's temple, the enraged virgin goddess transformed her beautiful hair to serpents and made her face so terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would turn a man to stone. In Ovid's telling, Perseus describes Medusa's punishment by Athena as just and well-deserved.

In the majority of the versions of the story, while Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon, she was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who was sent to fetch her head by King Polydectes of Seriphus as a gift.

With help from Athena and Hermes, who supplied him with winged sandals, Hades' cap of invisibility, a sword, and a mirrored shield, he accomplished his quest.

The hero slew Medusa by looking at her harmless reflection in the mirror instead of directly at her to prevent being turned into stone.
When the hero severed Medusa's head from her neck, two offspring sprang forth: the winged horse Pegasus and the giant Chrysaor who later became the hero wielding the golden sword.

This painting of the head of Madusa is by Caravaggio

Jane Ellen Harrison argues that "her potency only begins when her head is severed, and that potency resides in the head; she is in a word a mask with a body later appended... the basis of the Gorgoneion is a cultus object, a ritual mask misunderstood."

In Odyssey xi, Homer does not specifically mention the Gorgon Medusa:

"Lest for my daring Persephone the dread,
From Hades should send up an awful monster's grisly head."

Harrison's translation states "the Gorgon was made out of the terror, not the terror out of the Gorgon."

According to Ovid, in North-West Africa Perseus flew past the Titan Atlas, who stood holding the sky aloft, and transformed him into stone. In a similar manner, the corals of the Red Sea were said to have been formed of Medusa's blood spilled onto seaweed when Perseus laid down the petrifying head beside the shore during his short stay in Aethiopia where he saved and wed his future wife, the lovely princess Andromeda.

Furthermore the poisonous vipers of the Sahara, in the Argonautica 4.1515, Ovid's Metamorphoses 4.770 and Lucan's Pharsalia 9.820, were said to have grown from spilt drops of her blood.

Perseus then flew to Seriphus where his mother was about to be forced into marriage with the king. King Polydectes was turned into stone by the gaze of Medusa's head.

Then he gave the Gorgon's head to Athena, who placed it on her shield, the Aegis.h/t wiki

Judith Beheading Holofernes

Holofernes was an Assyrian invading general of Nebuchadnezzar, who appears in the deuterocanonical Book of Judith.

It was said that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar dispatched Holofernes to take vengeance on the nations of the west that had withheld their assistance to his reign.

The general laid siege to Bethulia, commonly believed to be Meselieh, and the city almost surrendered.

It was saved by Judith, a beautiful Hebrew widow who entered Holofernes's camp and seduced him. Judith then beheaded Holofernes while he was drunk. She returned to Bethulia with the disembodied head, and the Hebrews defeated the enemy.

Holofernes is depicted in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Monk's Tale in The Canterbury Tales, and in Dante's Purgatorio (where Holofernes is to be found on the Terrace of pride). As a painter's subject it offers the chance to contrast the flesh and jewels of a beautiful, festively attired woman with the grisly victim, an Old Testament parallel to the New Testament vignette of Salome with the head of John the Baptist.

 I`m sure you will agree,not a woman to be messed with.
The painting is by a favourite of mine,Caravaggio
This is the first time Caravaggio chose such a highly dramatic subject.

The original bare breasts of Judith were later covered by the semi-transparent blouse. The rough details and the realistic precision (correct down to the tiniest details of anatomy and physiology) have caused some to think that the painting was inspired by two highly publicized Roman executions of the time: that of Giordano Bruno and Beatrice Cenci in 1599.

The model for Judith is Fillide Melandroni, a well-known courtesan of the day, whom Caravaggio used for several other paintings from around this time, notably Saint Catherine and Martha and Mary Magdalene. Leonardo da Vinci's drawing Study for a Caricature inspired the servant woman.ht/wiki

The look of cold concentration on Judith`s face, as she cut off his head is a chilling and masterful piece of art work.

Fools

This is called The Ship Of Fools its by my favourite artist Hieronymus Boche

The Ship of Fools is an allegory that has long been a fixture and reminder in Western literature and art.

The allegory depicts a vessel populated by human inhabitants who are deranged, frivolous, or oblivious, passengers aboard a ship without a pilot, and seemingly ignorant of their own direction.

This concept makes up the framework of the 15th century book Ship of Fools (1494) by Sebastian Brant, which served as the inspiration for Bosch's famous painting, Ship of Fools: a ship—an entire fleet at first—sets off from Basel to the paradise of fools.

In literary and artistic compositions of the 15th and 16th centuries, the cultural motif of the ship of fools also served to parody the 'ark of salvation' (as the Roman Catholic Church was styled).
h/t wiki




The owl in the tree is symbolic of heresy, as is the Muslim crescent on the pink banner that flies from the ship's mast.

The lute and bowl of cherries have erotic associations.

The people in the water may represent the sins of gluttony or lust.

The inverted funnel is symbolic of madness

The large roast bird is a symbol of gluttony.

The knife being used to cut it down may be a phallic symbol or it may be symbolic of the sin of anger.

A monk and a nun are singing together.
This has some erotic overtones (especially with the presence of the aforementioned lute) since men and women in monastic orders were supposed to be separate.

The painting as we see it today is a fragment of a triptych that was cut into several parts.
The Ship of Fools was painted on one of the wings of the altarpiece, and is about two thirds of its original length.
The bottom third of the panel belongs to Yale University Art Gallery and is exhibited under the title Allegory of Gluttony.
The wing on the other side, which has more or less retained its full length, is the Death of the Miser, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

The two panels together would have represented the two extremes of prodigiality and miserliness, condemning and caricaturing both.
The painting is oil on wood, measuring 58 cm x 33 cm (23" x 13"). It is on display in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.

“The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.”

h/t think exist.com