Outline for a memory play: The matrilinear patrimony

In psychological theme, closely related to Edvard Munch's famous "The Scream"
(1993, National Museum, Oslo) is Caravaggio's "Medusa" (1597) which I viewed in the Uffizi Gallery last spring.  Most people in the thronging crowds that day walked past it.

I cannot argue for any traditionally art-historical link between the two works of art, e.g., that Munch was inspired after having seen the earlier work or a copy of it.

But I do believe that thematically the two share a very strong link, one that transcends the absence of a traditional art-historical patrimony.

Some works of art took the artist several decades to arrive at a unfinished state, e.g., Rodin's "Gates of Hell" (Musee Rodin, Paris).   Others were apparently whipped off in a matter of hours.

The rough state of the surface of a work of art is no indicator of the quality of either the conception of or the work of art itself.

Logic, cold and often cruel.  Feeling, deeper, tempestuous.

One has been subjected to the dictates of the other, a thematic repeatedly asserted in coursework at institutions of higher learning.

To the lower depths, then...feeling...holding the hand of logic.

I was turned to stone

because I gazed into the

face of Medusa.

Unlike Perseus

I had no shield.

Unlike Perseus,

I had no sword.

Can stone be turned into water?

* * * * *

Dramatis personae:

Medusa,

Perseus,

The boy,

The mother,

The shooting stars,

The night.