The inspiration from this piece comes from the life cycle of jellyfish. They go from egg, to larva, to polyp, ephyra, to the adult medusa phase. After learning this, I had one thing in my mind, to depict the Greek mythological snake woman as jellyfish instead.
There are numerous version of the story of Medusa, the earliest depicting her simply as a hideous monster that is so ugly any who look at her is turned to stone. The demigod Perseus slays her with the help of the gods and uses her severed head as a weapon, turning enemies to stone. As time progressed, her story morphs into one significantly more human and sympathetic. She becomes a beautiful human priestess of Athena, sworn to purity and celibacy. She then sleeps with Poseidon in Athena’s temple, and is turned into a monster by the goddess in revenge for defiling her temple and breaking her vows. In more modern interpretations and understandings of consent, the narrative changes to Poseidon forcing himself on her, making her a modern feminist symbol.
This is the interpretation I took inspiration from. Medusa is now a jellyfish instead of a snake, maybe even like a siren, taking her revenge on Poseidon, now a sailor, holding his head in a similar manner to the statues of Perseus holding Medusa’s head. I chose the Portuguese Man o’ War, as it’s one of the most well known, has the most striking appearance, and a deadly reputation. Ironically, the Portuguese Man o’ War is not actually a jellyfish, but a symbiotic colony or individual organisms. The scene is depicted in the style of early 19th century book illustrations, and the James Russel Lowell quote is from his poem “The Sirens.”
I learned about the jellyfish life cycle and the medusa phase after listening to the song Sempiternal Beings by the British progressive Haken. In the song they reference the kind immortality of certain species of jellyfish and medusa. Upon further research, I learned that some jellyfish, such as the moon jellyfish, as they reach the end of their adult medusa phase, through age, hunger, injury, etc. can revert back to the earlier polyp stage, restarting part of the cycle. This can happen seemingly indefinitely.
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