Eleanor Winsor Leach

Ekphrasis and the theme of artistic failure in Ovid's Metamorphoses

In his review of the first edition of Brooks Otiss Ovid as an Epic Poet , William Anderson challenges the notion that structural symmetry is the principle that governs Ovids narrative design. To propose an alternative view of Ovidian aesthetics, he takes for his example the weaving contest of Arachne and Minerva in Book 6. Minervas tapestry which depicts her own victory in the contest for the naming of Athens is arranged in a completely symmetrical design. The judging gods stand six on either side of Jupiter; the disputants likewise stand on opposite sides. Each corner of the tapestry contains a panel showing the punishment of mortals who in one way or another have challenged the gods, and the whole is framed with an ornamental border of olive leaves. “The goddess,” as Anderson says, “produced a perfect piece of Classicistic art, structurally balanced and thematically grandiose, in support of the established order.” With this monumental and authoritarian piece of work, the tapestry of Minervas rival Arachne contrasts in every way. It is flagrantly asymmetrical and lifelike: a swirl of divine figures in unedifying situations … one god after another gratifying his lust for a human woman. There is no apparent structure to the tapestry which consists of nine affairs of Jupiter; six of Neptune; four of Apollo and one each of Liber and Saturn. Juxtaposed as they apparently are, they have a cumulative effect, much as Baroque paintings do by contrast with the neatly arranged masterpieces of Raphael.