Medea

Most classical paintings of Medea treat her like a straightforward monster. The Greek myth ends with her murdering her own children after Jason abandons her, so older texts usually just frame her as a one-dimensional villain. Evelyn De Morgan’s 1889 oil painting completely ignores that tradition. Instead of painting a furious witch, De Morgan shows Medea wandering alone through a massive, echoing marble hall. She is wearing a thick pink and rose madder gown. Art historians like Jan Marsh and Pamela Gerrish Nunn note that this specific color was chosen to represent her royal status and a kind of underlying spiritual purity. The background architecture is loaded with ancient Greek symbols of strength, like statues of lions. The real tension comes from what she is holding. In her right hand is a smoking vial of poison. She is literally bracing herself for the horrific revenge she is about to take on Jason's new bride and her own kids. But the focus of the piece is entirely on her face. Her brow is furrowed, and she looks deeply sad and desperate rather than purely malicious. De Morgan used this quiet, heavy moment to frame Medea as a tragically wronged woman. Inspired by William Morris’s poem The Life and Death of Jason, the painting forces the viewer to actually respect her grief. It was a bold feminist statement for the Victorian era, demanding that society look at the raw reality of a woman's suffering instead of just writing it off as madness.