How Was The Spider Created in Greek Mythology?
The story of Arachne
There is an ancient city called Colophon in the south of Izmir/Turkey. The foundation of this city dates back to 1500 BC.
According to legend, a beautiful girl named Arachne lives in the city of Colophon. Arachne is a very skilled weaver. Even from faraway countries, people come to see what Arachne weaves. Although almost everyone is amazed by what they see, they cannot help but ask the following question: “Did you learn how to weave and knit so beautifully from the Goddess Athena?”
Athena is the master of weaving and the goddess of handicrafts and fine arts.
The weaver girl does not like such questions and answers curtly: “What Athena?” she says. “Who is she? She should come to learn knitting and weaving from me.”
What the weaver girl said reaches Athena’s ears. Athena visits Arachne disguised as an old woman.
Arachne does not realize that this old woman is the goddess Athena and tells the old woman what she said about the Goddess. Athena, who was very angry at this situation, changed into her normal form and challenged Arachne to a knitting contest.
Arachne and Athena sit at the embroidery frames. They both weave embroidery for days. When it is finished, the referees of the competition examine the touches. After long discussions, Arachne’s weavings won the first place.
Athena goes crazy with jealousy. She can’t hold back and breaks Arachne’s frames. Not content with this, Athena turns Arakahne into a spider.
Arachne’s fate is to remain suspended in a woven web for days. People who see the web will constantly break it, and Arachne will weave it again. This punishment will last forever.
This is one of my favorite paintings so I want to explain it separately.
It is one of the large and complex works of the artist, who usually makes single-figure portraits, and is exhibited in the Prado Museum in Madrid. The work, which has a multi-layered composition, features the moment of the competition in the foreground, Athena in the form of an old woman on the left, Arachne in a white dress on the right, and her assistants located in three different parts of the stage. The work, which features a finished tapestry thought to have been made by Arachne in the background, is considered an accurate interpretation of the mythological story.
