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Today in Myth Class: actually there’s a few things.
I missed a couple days of scholarly discourse (my favorite) so let’s cram them all in here.
*deep breath, this’ll be a tl;dr if I’ve ever wrote one*
- 5/31: Let’s Talk About Alchemy, Let’s Talk About You And Me
This one is kinda neat because of what’s not pictured.
Here’s Lust’s Photo:
But here’s the full painting:
They’ve cut the Alchemist himself out of the photo, choosing instead to focus on his assistant, the observer. What’s this trying to say? Is there more to be had in the experience of doing something, or observing someone doing it? The DaVinci quote appears to support the former, the intentional painting crop, the latter. Are we the observer, or the observed?
Fun fact: the full title of this painting is “The Alchymist, in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone, Discovers Phosphorus, and prays for the successful Conclusion of his operation, as was the custom of the Ancient Chymical Astrologers.”
- 6/1 Love and Posession
This ones a massive contrast for me between the quote and the art. Faulkner wrote this quote in “Mississippi,” arguably his most famous essay; you can read it here if you like. I love this story. The quote is a particularly romanticized commentary on the human condition.
The painting, on the other hand, is another nod to Ovid’s Metamorphosis, with the story of Perseus and Andromeda. Perseus, having defeated Medusa, borrowed a pair of winged sandals from Mercury and was cruising around when he spotted Andromeda chained to a cliff overlooking the sea below, waiting to be eaten by a sea monster. He resolved to rescue her, and after insisting she speak with him, Andromeda told him that she’d been offered by King Cepheus, her father, as a sacrifice to Neptune, god of the sea, in penance for her mother Cassiope’s lofty claim that her daughter was more beautiful than Neptune’s daughters, the sea nymphs. Neptune planned to flood the world as revenge for the slight against his children, but the Oracle of Jupiter told Cepheus that Andromeda could pay the ultimate price for her mother’s pride instead and spare humanity. Perseus strikes a deal with Andromeda’s parents that, since he’s obviously the best candidate for son-in-law, he will just kill the sea monster and claim Andromeda for his wife. He does so handily. This is very much the story of a man claiming a beautiful woman as a prize, with the bonus that she’s literally being punished for being beautiful. Women are painted both the cause of great pain, and as tokens of appreciation.
- 6/2/17 Love in the Time of Chisels
Again we have a quote that appears far more romantic than the painting it’s superimposed on. It also basically says to be careful when speaking from the heart, because you lose your ability to be as calculating as a situation may require.
The painting is Pygmalion and his Statue, again from Metamorphosis. Pygmalion created a sculpture of a woman that was so beautiful, he fell in love with it. When he went to Aphrodite’s shrine to pray, he was too embarrassed to admit he was in love with an inanimate object, and instead prayed that a woman “the very image of his statue” would appear to him. When he returned home, he kissed the lips of the stone woman and found that they were warm, and his true wish had been granted. The perfect image of a woman, created by man, had come to life. They married and had children shortly thereafter, featuring little to no autonomy from the statue-now-woman herself. Ovid doesn’t even give her a name.
Many notable works are based on Pygmalion, such as the Shaw play “Pygmalion” which later became inspiration for the film My Fair Lady, a play about a man molding a woman to what he perceives as “perfection.”
Also worth discussing: the Pygmalion Effect, named after this story, in which higher expectations are said to increase performance. For example, if someone in a position of leadership expresses specific goals and high expectations of someone beneath them, the subordinate will subconsciously increase their performance to match a perceived expectation.
That’s all for today, if you’ve read this far, have a cookie. Or a stiff drink. We’re clearly in for a dark and bumpy ride.
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Great post, @wanda102! Thanks for your insight. I do believe I’ll have a cookie and a stiff drink. 🙂
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@wanda102, this is fascinating! Especially what they are choosing not to show in these paintings! This must all mean something right?? Could all the quotes put together be a code or something??
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@wanda102 Fantastic job with these, the insight you bring to the paintings is super helpful. I find it really interesting what’s being left out of the images, I wonder if ever single image was posted and you only looked at what was cut out of the image if it would have a pattern or meaning some how.
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@wanda102 – WOW, great catch with the alchemist painting!! The lighting designer in me is fascinated because obviously in the full painting, the focus is on the alchemist and our attention isn’t on the assistant at all, but in the cropped version the contrast almost feels like it’s been changed to intentionally pull the eye towards the assistant just in that one frame. It also gives me the sense that he’s doing something behind the alchemists back, perhaps helped by the guy standing over him, who almost seems to be shielding him from view.
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@mistere Funny you should mention that because I’m working on putting that together right now. I’ll link here when I’m through.
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I’m loving these breakdowns @wanda102. And the cropping of these paintings is definitely suspect.
Rings true to the shadow makers only showing us one thing while the true picture is hidden from our view.
Again comes back to the Allegory of the Cave.
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