Introduction

Do you know the story of Pygmalion and Galatea? If so, how do the two works whose titles refer to Pygmalion retell that story? In doing so, how do they tell a story of the power relationships between women and men in the world?
Even if you do not know the story of Pygmalion, look closely at the two images depicting the subject. What do you see? How do the male and female figures in the Goltzius engraving relate to each other; which figure seems to be dominant, and which submissive? Why? Now look at the work attributed to Raymond: how does the story it tells differ? How might the fact that one was created by a man and the other by a woman artist have influenced the retelling of the story? What story could the woman artist be telling about herself as an artist in reversing the roles within the image?

Once you have looked at the images that retell the story of Pygmalion, look closely at the two images in which women are either pictured in or under painters’ palettes. What questions do these images prompt you to ask, and what do they tell you? What might it mean to picture a woman’s face as daubs of paint on an artist’s palette?