Minerva Changing Arachne into a Spider

            The engraving, Minerva Changing Arachne into a Spider, was created in 1676 by French artist Jean Lapaurtre. Besides being an artist, he was an apprentice to a carpenter and builder and drew designs for ceilings and rooms. This painting depicts the myth of Arachne and Minerva. Lapautre’s etching uses dark lines that form a grid to create a unique texture in the shadows and interrupts this pattern by turning the lines into a web shape to draw the eye to the subject of the etching, Arachne’s head at the center of what appears to be a web pattern. He places Minerva in the corner and light seems to emanate from the point of Arachne's head.

 

            The way the lines radiate from Arachne’s head captures the transformation where her head shrinks and is one of the only parts of her body that remains, which explains why Lapaurte focuses on her head in order to show the process of the transformation instead of a completed spider. In the text, Minerva is so upset by the success of Arachne that she isn’t satisfied by just declaring herself the winner, she destroys the evidence of Arachne’s talent. 

 

            Lapaurtre’s choice to leave the tapestry discarded and crumpled on the floor shows the censorship of the crimes of the gods. Minerva’s aggressive pose reflects the goddess’s anger at Arachne’s success. In her hand, she holds a boxwood shuttle from her loom, which Ovid specifies she used to strike Arachne multiple times in line 133: “ter quater Idmoniae frontem percussit Arachnes.”  This shows a contrast between creation of artwork and Minerva as a master weaver into someone tearing down others’ work and becoming vengeful, using the tools of her creation as weapons against Arachne. The light emanating from Arachne also suggests that even as she loses her human form, her identity or spirit as a weaver remains. This mirrors the myth where Minerva, although she is seeking revenge, recognizes Arachne's talent in some ways and even in punishing her allows her to live in a new form that can still weave. Ovid shows this in line 136 where Minerva says: “vive quidem, pende tamen, improba” which translates to “live indeed, hang however, wicked one” and reveals the irony of allowing Arachne to keep weaving while punishing her. This ensured that the punishment inflicted both harmed and silenced her but still preserved her weaving skills.

 

            In conclusion, by focusing on the transition rather than the finished spider, Lapaurtre successfully captures the tension of the moment described in Ovid’s text. The light coming from Arachne’s shrinking head draws attention and may show that although her human form is now disappearing, her skill as a weaver and the aspect that made Minerva envious or outraged remains. By showing a tapestry that is torn down and crumpled, lying in the shadows, but not fully destroyed shows the failure of Minerva’s censorship. Just as how Ovid’s poetry survived his exile, Arachne’s talent survived her transformation. Her tapestry, although brought down from its original position and no longer displayed, survived and her skill as an artist lived on in her new form.