Medusa Rondanini Analysis

Stemming from Greek mythology, Medusa was a monster, a gorgon, generally described as having the face of a hideous human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. The stories vary as to why Medusa was so horrific in sight, such as her boastfulness towards Athena or not marrying Poseidon. Medusa was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield.

Upon traveling to Rome, Goethe was stuck by the sculpture, Medusa Rondanini, while at an exhibit in Palazzo Rondanini. The sculptor depicts Perseus in a heroic stance holding Medusa’s head. His fascination with the tensions revealed in a cast of the Medusa Rondanini can be seen in the “Tod und Leben” . The paint shows the death of those trying to hold on to their humanistic nature, similarly, it is the ‘contest between life and death, between pain and rapture, exercises, like some great problem’ that draws Goethe’s attention when he views the

Medusa sculptor. This gives Goethe enough reason to continue to explore the life story of Medusa.

After the Grand Tour, Goethe was able to revise his work, the Faust and illustrate his true interpretation of Medusa. Faust involves the Faust’s search for transcendent knowledge rather than scholarly, much similar to Goethe. The Poet, whom tags along with the Faust represents artistic autonomy. He is able to look at Medusa when the time comes for Faust to be tested. He can recognize her as the problems that persisted during his own time period.
During that time, Goethe reveals to his follower the King of Ludwig, “the creature(s) may be ugly, yet they are fully shaped organic wholes”. The term ‘ugly’ just labels the creatures as it labels Medusa, however, as a whole there is much more to her being as to say that mythical creatures and problems are capable of changing. If the sighting of ugly Medusa caused Goethe to think of the struggle of transcending beyond what society sees as acceptable, then this validates Goethe’s longing to travel to Italy penniless, he now sees it as sensible. Knowing that he truly has the ability to change his mentality of depending upon wealth for fulfilment, he expresses his enthusiasm when stating, "the mere knowledge that such a work could be created and still exists in the world makes me twice the person I was." He has the confidence that going to Italy without a substantial amount of income will teach him how to be bare, naked in a social and materialistic world and in turn, helping him find his identity.
After Goethe’s interpersonal experience, the affluent King Ludwig of Bavaria purchased the medusa Rondanini supltor on his own Grand Tour of Italy as a prince, moving it to Glyptothek in Munich, Germany.

This shows Goethe's influence on general public based upon his movements and experiences that caught the attention of many of the elite. Those looking in on Goethe’s conduct, such as the king of Baravia, hoped to gain such wisdom for himself and his people. I reason that King Ludwig of Baravia purchased the Medusa sculpture in order to proclaim his citizens as distinctly enlightened because of their relativity to the artistic piece. Thus, King Ludwig began to emphasize a focus on visual arts for self-understanding and Grand Tours to gain hands-on education as well as economic status. Therefore, Munich became an important center for visual arts and painting because of the self-identification that was only believed to be found in

art.

Before Goethe’s transformation he’d been going around himself, circling, in search for joy and self-fulfillment. After constantly being entertained by others, he had no idea of what he can do for himself in order to be at peace. Until now, he hadn't had a real connection with his identity, “My purpose in making this wonderful journey is not to delude myself but to discover myself in the objects I see… Though I am still always myself, I believe I have been changed to the very marrow of my bones.” In Faust, Goethe evaluates his difference in state of mind by getting his character Mephistopheles, the devil, to challenge Faust’s fascination with Medusa, similar to what Goethe experienced in real life. Mephistopheles points out that Faust and Goethe would have ‘abominated’ such images in times past. However, the aesthetic classicism implied here was intended to force the human figure more beautiful proportions, ‘the nobler the forms, the higher characters’. While Goethe was holding himself to a higher degree of selflessness, he found himself obligated to find his identity in the objects surrounding him.