The Spinners

 

In some ways it's difficult to tell where "reality" ends and the tapestry begins as they are both telling the same story. What is real is interacting with what is unreal.....sort of all woven together just like story of the spinners. It is as if the tapestry is interacting with the women and vice versa. The entire painting is the weaving together of reality and mythology, mortal human and goddess, truth and fiction, darkness and light, rich and poor, young and old, filth and cleanliness, good and evil, friends and enemies, power and service.......etc., etc., etc. The cat is extremely fascinating as well. She has her right ear turned out as if listening to the goddess Athena while facing Arachne. Cat's are ALWAYS curious. She also has her eye on the ball of wool, ready to pounce and unwind it (wound and unwound!). After reading the story, I learned that Arachne's punishment from Athena for challening her was that Athena turned her into a spider where she would have to weave for the rest of her life. In the painting, as Arachne is holding the wool in her left hand there appears to be a vague outline of a spider web hanging underneath the wool, kind of a foreshadowing of what is to come in the future for her.