Perseus and Medusa: between Warburg and Benjamin

We know that the ancient Greek hero Perseus plays a fundamental role in Warburg's essay on Schifanoia Palace. It is now during the Kreuzlingen confinement that Warburg receives the proofs of his Schifanoia article and that Perseus seems to become more and more important in Warburg's meditation. With his fight against the monster Medusa, Perseus is – as Warburg writes in a letter from Kreuzlingen, in 1924 – “the symbol of the world-directed energy (weltzugewandte Energie)”. And only a few hours before his death, the last notes Warburg writes are “Perseus or energetic aesthetics as logical orientation in Giordano Bruno”. But what does Perseus exactly represent, or: what does “energetic aesthetics” mean?