Arachne1.0016_Velazquez

Diego Velázquez, 1599-1660, "Las Hilanderas" or "The Spinners" or "The Tapestry Weavers,", or "La Fáblua de Aracne," c. 1657, Madrid, Prado, inv. no. 1173

This important painting has come to be known as "The Fable of Arachne," because it tells the story of her weaving contest with Athena, as told in Ovid Met. 6.1-145. Many questions rise in deciphering this painting; however, "What we can say, is that invoking Ovid makes a new kind of sense for the whole picture, providing possible links between foreground and background (and so the women who worked on tapestries become the fable of Arachne)." Martindale

If Ovid links himself as an artist with Arachne (Martindale 308) is Velázquez emulating here Ovid's own narrative prowess? In the Metamorphoses the poet embeds stories within stories, as here the painter also does.

The complex pictoral narrative tells stories in three levels: 1) the rape of Europa (the inset tapestry), 2) Minerva's judgment of Arachne (in the room where the tapestry hangs), and 3) Minerva's visit to the daughters of Idmon (in the foreground). Martindale, in fact, suggests a fourth, literally foregrounded, level: the wool being spun in the foreground is going to become the thread for the tapestry in the background.

See also now Javier Portús, Metapintura: un viaje a la idea del arte en España (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado), 190-96 (within the essay "Arte Infinito: Aracne Faciebat".