Changing Paintings: 32 Medea’s murder by proxy

Up to this point in his Metamorphoses, Ovid’s account of the sorceress Medea has told of her better achievements, in enabling Jason to win the Golden Fleece, and to rejuvenate his father Aeson. Such powers are readily abused, though, and those stories are followed by a brief account of her downfall.

Medea pretends that she and Jason have fallen out, and flees to Pelias’ court in Colchis; Pelias is Aeson’s half-brother, thus Jason’s uncle. She tells that court how she rejuvenated Aeson, prompting Pelias’s three daughters (the Peliades) to ask her to do the same for their father. To ensure their commitment to her trap, Medea first demonstrates her rejuvenation procedure on a sheep, whose throat she cuts before plunging it into a large bronze kettle and turning it into a lamb.

The daughters are hooked, and plead with Medea to do the same to their father. She sets out to gather her magic herbs and other ingredients for her potion. As she starts preparing that, Medea urges the Peliades to drain the blood from their father to prepare his body for treatment, by cutting his throat and other major blood vessels.

The daughters cannot bear to watch one another, but attack their father while he is still in bed. He tries to prop himself up and ask them what they are doing, but is cut short as Medea plunges his body into the boiling cauldron containing water, not the magic potion.

Georges Moreau de Tours (1848-1901), The Murder of Pelias by His Daughters (1878), oil, further details not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Georges Moreau de Tours’ The Murder of Pelias by His Daughters (1878) is one of the few paintings to show the Peliades committing this horrendous act. The old man is resting uncomfortably on a couch, behind which his name is inscribed in Greek. Medea shrinks into the shadows behind, her face half-covered, as the young women set about Pelias with their daggers. The daughter at the back appears to be offering Medea a knife so that she can join in, but she sits impassively in front of her boiling cauldron.

Knowing she had deceived the Peliades in her plan to get them to murder their father, Medea flees in her chariot drawn by winged dragons. Ovid takes her on a whirlwind tour of fifteen locations where mythical transformations had occurred, finally reaching the city of Corinth. This ends with brief mention of Medea’s subsequent history, and her abandonment by her husband Jason. She uses sorcery to take revenge on his new bride, and murders her two young sons as revenge against Jason, their father. She finally flees to Athens, where she marries King Aegeus.

Richard Dadd (1817–1886), Jason and Medea (1855), watercolour on paper, dimensions not known, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Image courtesy of and © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Richard Dadd’s watercolour of Jason and Medea, or The Flight of Medea with Jason – Chief of the Argonauts, shows Medea fleeing on foot with Jason, rather than in her sky chariot, in accord with other accounts of this myth. Iolcus is shown in the distance, and Medea’s maid is watching to see if they are being pursued.

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), Medea (1838), oil on canvas, 260 × 165 cm, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, Lille, France. Wikimedia Commons.

Eugène Delacroix’s first version, titled simply Medea (1838) and now in Lille, captures the scene well. The mother looks anxiously into the distance, to see if she is being followed, or there are any witnesses about. The boys seem to know what is about to happen: one is crying as Medea’s arm is holding him by his neck, and the other is hiding under her skirts.

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), Medea about to Kill her Children (1862), oil on canvas, 122 x 84 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Delacroix made at least two later copies, including Medea about to Kill her Children (1862) which is half the size, and now in the Louvre.

Henri Klagmann (1842-1871), Medea (1868), oil, dimensions not known, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, Nancy, France. Image by Vassil, via Wikimedia Commons.

Henri Klagmann’s Medea (1868) shows the boys playing at mother’s feet, as Medea, grasping the handle of her knife with her left hand, wrestles with her conscience.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), Vision of Medea (1828), oil on canvas, 173.7 x 248.9 cm, The Tate Gallery (Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856), London. Image © and courtesy of The Tate Gallery, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-vision-of-medea-n00513

JMW Turner tries to bring together many of the elements in this tragedy in his ingenious Vision of Medea (1828), which he painted when staying in Rome with Sir Charles Eastlake during the autumn and winter of 1828.

Jason has abandoned Medea for his new bride Glauce (or Creusa), and Medea is now in the midst of an incantation to force his return. In the foreground are the materials which she is using to cast her spell: flowers, snakes, and other supplies of a sorceress. Seated by her are the Fates. In the upper right, Medea is shown again in a flash-forward to her fleeing Corinth in her chariot drawn by dragons, the bodies of her children thrown down after their deaths.

Turner didn’t show this painting at the Royal Academy until 1831, where it was considered to be a wonderful “combination of colour”, but generally incomprehensible.