Editing Pandora (section)

==Artistic representations==
[[File:J.D.Batten Pandora 1913.jpg|thumb|upright=1.10|left|Hammer-wielding workmen appear through a doorway, while in the foreground Hephaestus broods on the as yet unanimated figure of "Pandora" in the painting by [[John D. Batten]], ''The Creation of Pandora'', 1913, tempera on fresco, 128 × 168 cm, [[Reading University]]]]

Images of Pandora began to appear on Greek pottery as early as the 5th century BCE, although identification of the scene represented is sometimes ambiguous. An independent tradition that does not square with any of the Classical literary sources is in the visual repertory of Attic [[Red-figure pottery|red-figure]] vase-painters, which sometimes supplements, sometimes ignores, the written testimony; in these representations the upper part of Pandora is visible rising from the earth, "a [[chthonic]] goddess like [[Gaia (mythology)|Gaia]] herself."<ref>Jeffrey M. Hurwit, "Beautiful Evil: Pandora and the Athena Parthenos" ''American Journal of Archaeology'' '''99'''.2 (April 1995:171–186) p.&nbsp;177.</ref> Sometimes,<ref>E.g. as on a volute krater, ca 450&nbsp;BCE, in the [[Ashmolean Museum]], Oxford (Oxford G 275), Hurwit, p.&nbsp;276 fig.&nbsp;7.</ref> but not always, she is labeled ''Pandora''. In some cases the figure of Pandora emerging from the earth is surrounded by figures carrying hammers in what has been suggested as a scene from a [[satyr play]] by [[Sophocles]], ''Pandora, or The Hammerers'', of which only fragments remain.<ref>''Sophocles: Fragments'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=voiup-mz2CkC&dq=Pandora+Sophocles&pg=PA251 Volume 3, pp.251-3]</ref> But there have also been alternative interpretations of such scenes.<ref>Susan B. Matheson, ''Polygnotos and Vase Painting in Classical Athens'', University of Wisconsin1995, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Y_UTwjgroSIC&dq=Pandora+Sophocles&pg=PA261 pp.261-2]</ref>

In the late Pre-Raphaelite painting by [[John D. Batten]], hammer-wielding workmen appear through a doorway, while in the foreground Hephaestus broods on the as yet unanimated figure of "Pandora". There were also earlier English paintings of the newly created Pandora as surrounded by the heavenly gods presenting gifts, a scene also depicted on ancient Greek pottery.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/T22.2.html| title = Theoi}}</ref> In one case it was part of a decorative scheme painted on the ceiling at Petworth House by [[Louis Laguerre]] in about 1720.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/486595| title = National Trust site}}</ref> [[William Etty]]'s ''Pandora Crowned by the Seasons'' of a century later is similarly presented as an [[apotheosis]] taking place among the clouds.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Etty_-_Pandora_Crowned_by_the_Seasons,_1824.jpg| title = Wikimedia}}</ref>
 
In between these two had come [[James Barry (painter)|James Barry]]'s huge ''Birth of Pandora'', on which he laboured for over a decade at the turn of the nineteenth century.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.wikiart.org/en/james-barry/the-birth-of-pandora| title = Now in Manchester Art Gallery}}</ref> Well before that he was working on the design, which was intended to reflect his theoretical writings on the interdependence between history painting and the way it should reflect the ideal state.<ref>Liam Lennihan,"The Writings of James Barry and the Genre of History Painting", Routledge 2017, [https://books.google.com/books?id=My4rDwAAQBAJ p.186]</ref> An early drawing, only preserved now in the print made of it by [[Luigi Schiavonetti]], follows the account of Hesiod and shows Pandora being adorned by the Graces and the Hours while the gods look on.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?assetId=547422001&objectId=1599518&partId=1| title = The British Museum}}</ref> Its ideological purpose, however, was to demonstrate an equal society unified by the harmonious function of those within it. But in the actual painting which followed much later, a subordinated Pandora is surrounded by gift-bearing gods and [[Minerva]] stands near her, demonstrating the feminine arts proper to her passive role. The shift is back to the culture of blame whenever she steps outside it.<ref>John Barrell, ''James Barry, the birth of Pandora and the division of knowledge'', Macmillan 1992, [https://books.google.com/books?id=16XtCwAAQBAJ ch. 7]</ref>

In the individual representations of Pandora that were to follow, her idealisation is as a dangerous type of beauty, generally naked or semi-naked. She is only differentiated from other paintings or statues of such females by being given the attribute of a jar or, increasingly in the 19th century, a straight-sided box. As well as the many European paintings of her from this period, there are examples in sculptures by Henri-Joseph Ruxthiel (1819),<ref>{{cite web| url = https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henri-Joseph_Ruxthiel_-_Pandore.jpg| title = Wikimedia}}</ref> John Gibson (1856),<ref>{{cite web| url = https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O66216/pandora-statue-gibson-john| title = Victoria & Albert Museum| date = 1856}}</ref> Pierre Loison (1861, see above) and Chauncy Bradley Ives (1871).<ref>{{cite web| url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pandora_by_Chauncy_Bradley_Ives,_1871,_marble,_view_2_-_Brooklyn_Museum_-_DSC09595.JPG| title = Brooklyn Museum| date = 30 October 2013}}</ref>