Pygmalion (mythology)

Pygmalion is a legendary figure of Cyprus. Though "Pygmalion" is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name "Pumayyaton", [See Pygmalion of Tyre.] he is most familiar from Ovid's "Metamorphoses", X, in which Pygmalion is a sculptor who falls in love with a statue he has made.

In Ovid's narrative, Pygmalion was a Cypriot sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. According to Ovid, after seeing the Propoetides prostituting themselves, he is 'not interested in women', but his statue is so realistic that he falls in love with it. He offers the statue presents and eventually prays to Venus (Aphrodite). She takes pity on him and brings the statue to life. They marry and have a son, Paphos, [:"...a lovely boy was born;:Paphos his name, who grown to manhood, wall'd:The city Paphos, from the founder call'd." [http://classics.mit.edu/Ovid/metam.10.tenth.html#373 Ovid, "Metamorphoses" X] .] and, according to the author of "Bibliotheke", a daughter, Metharme. [Pseudo-Apollodorus, "Bibliotheke", iii.14.3.]

Ovid's mention of Paphos suggests that he was drawing on the same sources as the brief account of Pygmalion and Galatea in "Bibliotheke", a Hellenic mythography of the second-century CE that was formerly attributed to Apollodorus. "Pygmalion" is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name "Pumayyaton", and Galatea figures in the founding legend of Paphos in Cyprus.

Parallels in the technology of the time

The story of the breath of life in a statue has parallels in the examples of Daedalus, who used quicksilver to install a voice in his statues; of Hephaestus, who created automata for his workshop; of Talos, an artificial man of bronze; and, according to Hesiod, Pandora, who was made from clay at the behest of Zeus.

The discovery of the Antikythera mechanism suggests that such rumoured animated statues had some grounding in contemporary mechanical technology. The island of Rhodes was particularly known for its displays of mechanical engineering and automata - Pindar, one of the nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, said this of Rhodes in his seventh "Olympic Ode":

:"The animated figures stand :Adorning every public street :And seem to breathe in stone, or :move their marble feet."

The trope of a sculpture so lifelike it seemed about to move was a commonplace in Antiquity inherited by writers on art after the Renaissance.

ources

The Greek sources of Ovid's tale are fully discussed at Galatea.

Re-interpretations of Pygmalion

The basic Pygmalion story has been widely transmitted and re-presented in the arts through the centuries. At an unknown date, later authors give the name of the statue as the sea-nymph Galatea or Galathea. Goethe calls her Elise, based upon the variants in the story of Dido/Elissa.

In the Middle Ages Pygmalion was held up as an example of the excesses of idolatry, probably spurred by Clement of Alexandria's suggestion that Pygmalion had carved an image of Aphrodite herself. Although, by the 18th century it was a highly influential love-story, seen as such in Rousseau's musical play of the story. By the 19th century, the story often becomes one in which the awakened beloved rejects Pygmalion; although she comes alive, she is initially cold and unattainable.

A twist on this theme can also be seen in the story of "Pinocchio" where a wooden puppet is transformed into a real boy, though in this case the puppet possesses sentience prior to its transformation, and it is the puppet and not the woodcarver (sculptor) who beseeches the miracle.

William Shakespeare has a version of the legend in "The Winter's Tale" when Hermione is seen as a lifelike statue in the final scene.

Paintings

The story has been the subject of notable paintings by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Honoré Daumier, Edward Burne-Jones (four major works from 1868–1870, then again in larger versions from 1875-1878), Auguste Rodin, Ernest Normand, Paul Delvaux, Francisco Goya, Franz von Stuck, Francois Boucher, and Thomas Rowlandson, among others. There have also been numerous sculptures of the 'awakening'.

Literature

Ovid's Pygmalion has inspired several works of literature, including
*William Morris's poem "Earthly Paradise"
*Friedrich Schiller's poem "Ideals"
*Tommaso Landolfi's short story "La moglie di Gogol" ('The Wife of Gogol')
*Richard Powers's novel "Galatea 2.2"
*Amanda Filipacchi's novel "Vapor"
*Carol Ann Duffy's poem "Pygmalion's Bride"
*Willy Russell's play "Educating Rita"
*Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion"
*John Dryden's poem "Pygmalion and the Statue"
*Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein"
*Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "The Birth-Mark"
*Walid BItar's poem "The Fourth Person"
*Isaac Asimov's novel "The Positronic Man"
*H.P. Lovecraft's short story ""

Opera, ballet and music

The story of Pygmalion is the subject of Jean-Philippe Rameau's 1748 opera, "Pigmalion". It was also the subject of Gaetano Donizetti's first opera, "Il Pigmalione".

The English progressive rock group Yes composed "Turn Of The Century" (1977); it tells the story of the sculptor Roan who, in the grief of his wife's death, "molds his passion into clay." The sculpture of his wife comes to life and they fall in love.

The great choreographer Marius Petipa and the composer Prince Nikita Trubetskoi created a 4 act ballet on the subject called "Pygmalion, ou La Statue de Chypre". The ballet was revived in 1895 with the great ballerina Pierina Legnani.

The song "Trial By Fire" by [darkwave/gothic band] ThouShaltNot creates the idea of a modern day Pygmalion with lyrics such as "I sculpt your nature within, I am your Pygmalion" and "I dust away the plaster from off your breathing body.. You'll never be the same."

tage plays

There have also been successful stage-plays based upon the work, such as W. S. Gilbert's "Pygmalion and Galatea " (1871).

George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" (1912, staged 1914) owes something to both the Greek Pygmalion and the legend of "King Cophetua and the beggar maid"; in which a King lacks interest in women, but one day falls in love with a young beggar-girl, later educating her to be his Queen. Shaw's comedy of manners in turn was the basis for the Broadway musical "My Fair Lady" (1956).

Films

Notable 20th century feature films are "My Fair Lady" (1964, based on the stage play); "Mighty Aphrodite" by director Woody Allen; "Weird Science" directed by John Hughes; and the 1987 film "Mannequin", a remake of the 1948 classic "One Touch of Venus", as well as "S1m0ne" (featuring a computer-generated artificial intelligence as the love object); Many films have dealt collaterally with this theme.: "Vertigo", and more recently "Lars and the Real Girl", depicting an introverted man who falls in love with a plastic sex doll.

The popular horror genre in film has also had an interest in 'bringing to life' waxwork figures and show-room dummies (see: "Waxworks: A Cultural Obsession" by Michelle Bloom). Many horror films deviate considerably from the original story; for example, in "The Stepford Wives" (1975) the creators turn their living wives into inanimate (robotic, compliant) wives. Likewise, the legend serves as the inspiration for one of the Lineages, the Galatea, that appears in the White Wolf role-playing game "".

Television

* The American TV series "My Living Doll" portrayed a female robot whose creators attempted to transform her into a "perfect woman".

* The Aerosmith music video for "Hole in My Soul" features a nerdy college student who tries to find the girl of his dreams by creating one in a lab only to have her leave him.

* The Japanese anime series "" includes a character named Galatea, an artificial life form designed to be the next evolution of the human race.

* In Justice League Unlimited, Emile Hamilton creates a clone of Supergirl, that he names Galatea.

* In Philippine TV series "" features a teenage boy who falls in love with a mannequin who comes to life when lightning strikes it.

*The Japanese anime series Chobits - there is a dispute as to how 'real' the robots are and deals with the morality or the issue

* Dennis Potter's final works Karaoke & Cold Lazarus feature a character called Arthur "Pig" Maillion

*In the music video for "This Time" by K-pop group Wonder Girls,a designer falls in love with his mannequin,and she comes to life.She runs away,leaving the designer to chase after her.

Notes

Further reading

* Essaka Joshua. (2001). "Pygmalion and Galatea: The History of a Narrative in English Literature". Ashgate.
* Kenneth Gross. (1992). "The Dream of the Moving Statue". Cornell University Press. (A wide-ranging survey of 'living statues' in literature and the arts).
* Jack Burnham. "Beyond Modern Sculpture" (1982). Allan Lane. (A history of 'living statues' and the fascination with automata - see the introductory chapter: "Sculpture and Automata").
* Ernst Buschor. "Vom Sinn der griechischen Standbilder" (1942). (Clear discussion of attitudes to sculptural images in classical times).
* John J. Ciofalo. "The Art of Sex and Violence - The Sex and Violence of Art." "The Self-Portraits of Francisco Goya." Cambridge University Press, 2001.
* John J. Ciofalo. "Unveiling Goya's Rape of Galatea." "Art History" (December 1995), pp. 477-98.
* Gail Marshall. (1998). "Actresses on the Victorian Stage: Feminine Performance and the Galatea Myth". Cambridge University Press.
* Alexandra K. Wettlaufer. (2001). "Pen Vs. Paintbrush: Girodet, Balzac, and the Myth of Pygmalion in Post-Revolutionary France". Palgrave Macmillan.
* Danahay, Martin A. (1994) "Mirrors of Masculine Desire: Narcissus and Pygmalion in Victorian Representation". "Victorian Poetry", No. 32, 1994: pages 35-53.
* Edward A. Shanken. (2005) “ [http://artexetra.com/Hot2Bot.pdf Hot 2 Bot: Pygmalion’s Lust, the Maharal’s Fear, and the Cyborg Future of Art] ,” "Technoetic Arts" 3:1: 43-55.
* (2005). "Almost Human: Puppets, Dolls and Robots in Contemporary Art", Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ. (Catalogue for a group exhibition Mar 20 - Jun 12 2005)

ee also

*Narcissus
*Agalmatophilia
*Pinocchio

External links

* [http://classics.mit.edu/Ovid/metam.10.tenth.html#373 English-translation text of Ovid's poem] .
* [http://thelatinlibrary.com/ovid/ovid.met10.shtml Latin original, lines 243-297] , at http://thelatinlibrary.com
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=Z03b_-lMo9kC&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&dq=%22the+winter's+tale%22+pygmalion&source=web&ots=oAkYgx_vB7&sig=n4Bt4f8bj7nBjSW4rp4U_7EG0lU&hl=en Shakespeare reference]