Pygmalion is a fictional character from the Roman poet Ovid, found in the tenth book of his Metamorphoses. Pygmalion is a sculptor who falls in love with a statue he has made.

Pygmalion was a lonely Cypriot sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. According to Ovid 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 Aphrodite the goddess of beauty and love. Aphrodite takes pity on him and brings the statue to life. They marry and have a son, Paphos.

Ovid's mention of Paphos suggests he was drawing on the earlier work of Apollodorus, who also wrote about a Pygmalion. The story has its classical roots in that of Daedalus, who uses quicksilver to install a voice in his statues; and of Hephaestus who creates Talos (an artificial bronze man), and Pandora (from clay, at the behest of Zeus).

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. But 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.

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, Francois Boucher, and Thomas Rowlandson, among others. There have also been numerous sculptures of the 'awakening'. It was the subject of Gaetano Donizetti's first opera, Il Pigmalione.

Ovid's Pygmalion has also provided inspiration for several works of literature, including William Morris's Earthly Paradise, and Friedrich Schiller's Ideals. Both Morris and Schiller described the statue as made of marble. The legend also formed the inspiration for Galatea 2.2, a novel by Richard Powers.

There have also been successful modern stage-plays such as: W. S. Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea (1871); George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (1912, staged 1914); and My Fair Lady (1956). Shaw's play also owes something to 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.

Notable 20th century feature films are My Fair Lady (1964, based on the stage play); Mighty Aphrodite by director Woody Allen; and the film Mannequin, a remake of the 1948 classic One Touch of Venus.

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.

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.

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).

• 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) “Hot 2 Bot: Pygmalion’s Lust, the Maharal’s Fear, and the Cyborg Future of Art,” Technoetic Arts 3:1: 43-55. http://artexetra.com/Hot2Bot.pdf

See also

• Narcissus
• Statuephilia
• Pinocchio

External links

• English-translation text of Ovid's poem.

Characters in written fiction | Fictional Cypriots | History of Cyprus | بجماليون | Pygmalion | Pigmalión | Pygmalion et Galatée | Pigmalione | פיגמליון | Pygmalion (beeldhouwer) | ピュグマリオン | Pigmalion | Pygmalion | Пигмалион | Pygmalion | Pygmalion