Pygmalion2.0019_Draper

Pygmalion2.0019_Draper

OGCMA s.v. "Pygmalion"
Classical Sources:
Ovid Met. 10.243-98
Apollodorus Libr. 3.14.3

Herbert James Draper, 1864-1920, "Deep Sea Idyll", 1902, Royal Academy Pictures 1902.

A naiad turns tables on the masculine confronting the figurehead of the ship Pygmalion on the open sea. "The figurehead is that of a man frozen with arms locked behind him. This image shows the dangerous element of th Pygmalion story, in which the woman may be destructive rather than loving. Around the sea maiden are a lyre, pearls, and broken wood, evidence of her piratical and destructive tendencies." Kestner, 290, discusses Draper's "gynophobic" mindset, with paintings of the late 1890s showing figurative male destruction and emasculation.

A mermaid offering a shell to a ship's figurehead of a man, surrounded by choppy water and netting

"Max Ernst's lithograph Elektra was originally intended as an illustration to Paul Éluard's cycle of poems Chanson complète. Ernst emphasizes the affective in E.: the facial features of the figure, standing alone in an agitated posture on the stage, are represented just by three empty wide-open cavities." (Moog-Gruenewald, s.v. "Electra", 258).

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.