My Favorite Painting

The Gorgon (Gorgenhaupt), Wilhelm Trübner, 1891. 

I have a print of it in my gallery wall. This painting keeps fascinating me. It is beautiful, it is grotesque in its beauty, it feels a bit obscene to look at sometimes. It feels surreal even though the style is quite realistic. It feels powerful. To me, it has the message of embracing the dark side, the messy, the grotesque. Owning it, being oneself even if one is not like the others. Harnessing that power.

Gorgons feel powerful in their meaning. Medusa is the most prominent of the gorgons, and many don't know she's a gorgon at all. I didn't know before I came across this painting. She is not the only gorgon in mythology however, her two sisters Stheno and Euryale are too. Gorgons are female monsters that instill dread, have terrifying eyes and whose blood is said to have power to both heal and harm. They used to be depicted as ugly but over time got depicted as beautiful young women more often. (Source: Wikipedia)

According to Wikipedia, gorgon comes from old Greek gorgós  (γοργός) meaning "grim, fierce, awesome, dazzling" when spoken about the look. Others suggest the term gorgons comes from referring to the throat (gorge), or from an onomatopoeia with "grrrr" sounds.