exceptional for their intelligence, bravery and strength, but also sometimes arrogant, proud, pretentious, vain, vengeful and somewhat childish ...

1. exceptional for their intelligence, bravery and strength,
but also sometimes arrogant, proud, pretentious, vain, vengeful and somewhat childish
punished for disobedience, for daring to challenge the divine order, the divine policy,
for their pride, for abusing the hospitality of the gods by stealing ambrosia and nectar
accused and punished for of defying Zeus by teaching humans the secret of fire,
for opening a jar full of evil and suffering, letting all that nastiness fly out into the formerly perfect world

2. Greek mythological figures
who have had a relentlessly tragic life

3. Oedipus
He gets a bad rap for killing his dad and sleeping with his mom, but because he didn't know he was doing those things when he was doing them.
His parents abandoned him at birth. Because it was prophesied that he would do exactly what he eventually did.
So when he killed his father on a highway, he thought he was just defending himself against some random angry dude.
And when he married his mother and became the King, he thought it was just an awesome reward for saving Thebes from the Sphinx by solving her riddle.
Gouged out his own eyes when he found out the truth. And headed into bitter exile.

4. The baby is abandoned, his feet bound.
But he is taken in by a shepherd, who takes him to Corinth, and is adopted by King Polybius.
They call him Oedipus, "swollen feet",
and he grows up without knowing anything of its origins ...
Until the day the oracle at Delphi reveals the curse to him.
Jean Mansel
Fleur des histoires
vers fin 15e siècle
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits

7. Dark clouds,
two figures approach the viewer …
It is Oedipus, king of Thebes, and his daughter Antigone.
The contrast between the disgraced old man and the young woman who must also submit
to the decree of destiny.
Antoni Brodowski
Oedipus and Antigone
Œdipe et Antigone
1828
Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Warsaw

10. Oedipus stands before the Sphinx, who challenges him to solve a riddle
before he can enter the city of Thebes, just visible in the distance.
The skull and bones show the fate of those who have previously failed the test.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Oedipe explique l'énigme du sphinx
Oedipus and the Sphynx
1808-1825
Musée du Louvre, Paris

12. Oedipus meeting the Sphinx at the crossroads on his journey between Thebes and Delphi ...
Unlike Ingres' version where Oedipus appears as the dominant figure with the Sphinx on the defensive
and partly obscured,
in Moreau's version the Sphinx is on the offensive, clawing at Oedipus whose victory in the encounter
does not yet seem assured.
The Sphinx in the painting may be seen as a form of femme fatale, a common theme in of Symbolist painting.
…
(Ragnar von Holten has argued that the subject depicts not only the battle between good and evil,
but also between the sexes, and that the opening poem of Buch der Lieder by Heinrich Heine
was the source for the idea of the painting. In that poem the Sphinx triumphs over Oedipus.)
Gustave Moreau
Œdipe et le Sphinx
Oedipus and the Sphinx
1864
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

15. Tantalus
Tantalus is a super rich king who gets in some big time trouble with the gods.
Tantalus, abused the hospitality of Zeus by stealing ambrosia and nectar,
and offered up his own son Pelops as a sacrifice. He cut the boy’s body up and served it to the gods at a banquet.
As punishment for his crime, Tantalus is imprisoned in Tartarus.
There, in the deepest pit of the Underworld, he stands for all eternity in a pool of water with low-hanging fruit just above his head.
Every time he tries to drink the water, it drains away, and every time he tries to have a fruity snack the branch raises just out of his reach.

16. Most of the invited gods realized what was occurring ...
An angered Zeus order the Moirai, the Fates, to resurrect Pelops.
Fun Fact:
With grotesque humor, in 1766 the painter was commissioned the Tantalus painting
by the King of France Louis XV to decorate the dining-room at the Château de Bellevue.
Hugues Taraval
Le festin donné aux dieux par Tantale
The Feast of Tantalus
1767
Musée de Versailles, Paris

19. Eternal punishment in Hades follows …
”I also saw Tantalus, tormented by the direst agonies.
He stood amidst a pool, his chin lapped by the waves, and though he gasped with thirst,
still he could not drink.
For as the old man knelt down to taste the cool waters, in that moment they would seep away,
leaving only black sand around his feet, dried out by a hostile demon.
Around him grew trees so heavy with sweet pears, pomegranates, figs and green olives that their
branches were weighed down and hung around his head. But as the old man reached up to pick the
fruit, in that moment they were swept away by a sudden storm and carried up into the gathering clouds.”
Homer - The Odyssey: Book XI
Giovanni Battista Langetti, attributed to, attribué à
Tantalus
Tantale
17th century
Private collecction

21. Minos
An king powerful, vengeful, and often kind of childish. Without any problems until the day when Poseidon sends him a beautiful bull.
Minos he declines to sacrifice it, because he thinks it is too handsome.
This angers the sea god so much that he punishes Minos by causing his wife, Pasiphae, to fall in love with the bull.
This union resulted in the monstrous, man-eating Minotaur.
In short, a slightly disproportionate form of revenge.
On the bright side, once he's dead, King Minos becomes a judge of the dead down in the Underworld.

22. Minos, the Judge of the Underworld.
Minos, impassive and depraved, surrounded by a crowd of devils.
With the serpent coiled around him and two donkey ears (symbol of stupidity).
…
The pope's Master of Ceremonies Biagio da Cesena is reported by Vasari as saying that:
"it was most disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures,
.... and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather for the public baths and taverns".
Michelangelo immediately worked Cesena's face into the scene as Minos, judge of the underworld with donkey ears.
Michelangelo Buonarroti Michel-Ange
Last Judgment, detail Minos at the entrance of hell
Le Jugement dernier, détail l'enfer Minos
1537-1541
Cappella Sistina, Vatican

27. Phaedra
Is Theseus' second wife, who he marries after ditching the Amazonian Queen, Hippolyta,
and ... Phaedra falls in love with Hippolytus, Theseus's son by Hippolyta.
When Hippolytus rejects Phaedra's advances, she gets revenge by telling Theseus that Hippolytus raped her.
Theseus then asks his father Poseidon to curse Hippolytus, and the beautiful boy is dragged to his death by his own horses.
And so Phaedra goes down in a long list vengeful females in Greek mythology.
Of course, unlike oh say Medea, Phaedra feels horrible for what she does and commits suicide.

28. Unrequited love ...
Phaedra becomes humiliated when Hippolytus refuses her.
Étienne-Barthélémy Garnier
Hippolyte, après l'aveu de Phèdre sa belle-mère
Hippolytus After the Confession of Phaedra
1793
Musée Ingres Bourdelle, Montauban

30. The confrontation ...
Theseus, sits stone faced, one arm draped protectively around Phaedra
Hippolytus stands proud, even haughty. He refuses to dignify Phaedra's claims and even
holds up a hand, as though silencing his father.
Phaedra seems equally determined: her hard, closed face carefully avoids getting involved in
confrontation with the one she accuses.
But above all, he listens to the words that Oenone whispers in his ear.
Pierre-Narcisse Guérin
Phèdre et Hippolyte
Phaedra and Hippolytus
1815
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux

33. A richly decorated room ...
two maids ,eyelids closed express despair
Phaedra desperate, devastated, fragile and vulnerable
Alexandre Cabanel
Phèdre
Phaedra
1880
Musée Fabre, Montpellier

36. Pénélope
Her husband goes to war and takes 20 years to return.
Meanwhile, all she has to do all day is sew and then unstitch a giant tapestry.
We can call it a boring life ?
And also, when she returns home, her husband takes the time to dismiss one by one all the suitors who have kept him company for the past two decades.

37. queuing up ...
Penelope looks pretty unimpressed by the gifts and attention being showered on her by her suitors.
At least she has a lovely sea view out of her window!
John William Waterhouse
Penelope and the Suitors
Pénélope et les prétendants
1912
Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums, Aberdeen

40. Beccafumi’s Penelope holds a thread in her right hand …
refers
to her daily task of weaving the funeral shroud for Laertes,
and
to spinning, as a symbol of time and its passage, and to the Fates, the figures at the bottom right.
Domenico Beccafumi
Penelope
Pénélope
1514
Seminario Patriarcale, Venice

43. Orpheus
Plays a lyre so beautifully that he can charm the pants off of anybody—mortals, gods, animals, trees, rocks.
He also makes it on the very short list of heroes who managed to go down to the Underworld and make it out again, when he tried to rescue his wife, Eurydice.
Orpheus himself was later killed by the women of Thrace.
His head, still singing, floated to Lesbos, where an oracle of Orpheus was established.
His lyre they had placed in the heavens as a constellation.

44. Orpheus and Eurydice
a they start their journey back to life …
Peter Paul Rubens
Orpheus and Eurydice
Orphée et Eurydice
1636-1638
Museo del Prado, Madrid

46. The moment before the Maenads inflict the first wound …
Émile Lévy
La mort d'Orphée
Death of Orpheus
1866
Musée d’Orsay, Paris

49. Prometheus
He created mankind out of clay,
defied Zeus by teaching humans the secret of fire.
Zeus chained him to a rock and had eagles eat his liver everyday. Heracles set him free eventually.

50. Prometheus as a victor over the arrogant tyranny of the gods …
He holds the flame to the heavens in triumph.
Only the finger at his lips indicates the secretive nature of his deed.
At his feet rests a creature devoid of life’s warmth.
Heinrich Friedrich Füger
Prometheus Brings Fire
Prométhée fait présent du feu à l'humanité
1817
Liechtenstein Museum The Princely Collections, Vienna

52. With Mercury looking on with amusement,
Vulcan the god of fire is chaining Prometheus.
The dramatic lighting and red-burnt hands and faces
Van Baburen copied from his great example Caravaggio.
Dirck van Baburen
Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan
Vulcain enchaînant Prométhée
1623
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

55. A monstrous eagle digs about in the liver of Prometheus,
The liver was chosen as the source for torture,
as Greeks regarded the liver as intelligence, soul, and the seat of life.
...
The savage bird He is not content with his inhuman sacrificial feast,
but with his claws lacerates, here the agonized face.
He would fly murderously on the spectators, did not his chained prey detain him.
He can do no more that terrify the frightened onlookers his piercing eyes dart savage flames.
You might think that he moves, that his feathers tremble.
Peter Paul Rubens
Prometheus Bound
Prométhée enchaîné
1610-11
Museum of Art, Philadelphia

58. An unusual interpretation which substitutes vultures for Hesiod’s eagle.
Prometheus’s impassive face reflects his stoicism in the face of the vulture feeding from his liver.
Above his head is the flame that he gave to mankind.
A second, dead vulture indicates the perpetuity for which Prometheus will suffer,
at least until Heracles intervenes.
The appearance of Prometheus is messianic, he adopts a posture which is reminiscent
of the flagellation of Christ, and above all, the flame could represent the Holy Spirit.
Gustave Moreau
Prométhée
Prometheus
1868-1869
Musée National Gustave-Moreau, Paris

61. Narcissus
Is a deeply tragic figure.
What has he actually done to deserve his fate? Is it wrong to want to be single? Should he be forced to hook up with every nymph that throws herself at him?
What's more, when he does fall in love, he falls super deeply in love - so much so that he's willing to die. We might say that his love is misguided ...
When Narcissus sees his reflection in the water of the pool he falls hopelessly in love - with himself. Unable to capture his reflection,
Narcissus stays by the pond until he starves to death.
Pretty straightforward, really.

62. The most famous painting of Narcissus with just his beloved reflection …
masterly chiaroscuro,
one of Caravaggio’s greatest works
Caravaggio Le Caravage
Narcissus
Narcisse
1598-99
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome

64. An idyllic wooded landscape beside a stream with rocky edges ...
the young Narcissus fascinated by his own reflection,
the nymph Echo sits gazing at Narcissus in despair
Some white narcissi have emerged from the grass beside the youth's foot.
John William Waterhouse
Echo and Narcissus
Écho et Narcisse
1903
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

67. The final moments of the story …
three characters in an idyllic landscape
Echo looks mutely on,
Narcissus, is asleep, nearing death, his flowers already coming into bloom beside his head,
Cupid stands still, holding his torch, but his arrow points to the heavens.
Nicolas Poussin
Écho et Narcisse
Echo and Narcissus
1630
Musée du Louvre, Paris

70. Bellerophon
Just an everyday Corinthian prince, gets sent to King Proetus‘ court. But then, he’s accused of trying to sweep the queen off her feet.
He is given a one-way ticket to danger town with a bunch of impossible tasks.
But Bellerophon isn’t your average Joe. He hops on Pegasus, his trusty winged steed – thank you, Athena – and takes on the Chimera.
He goes on to tackle Amazons and Warriors named Solymi.
But his pride takes a detour to the clouds. He decides that he is going to visit Mount Olympus, home of the gods.
That’s where things go south.
Bellerophon he ends up blind and crippled, wandering as a beggar.

71. In the temple of Athena ...
While Bellerophon slept, he dreamed that Athena set a golden bridle beside him,
saying "Come, take this charm for the steed ..."
When he awoke, understood that he had to approach Pegasus while it drank from a well.
Bellerophon mounted his steed and flew off, back to Lycia where the Chimera was said to dwell.
Unknown
Bellerophon, Pegasus, and Athena
Bellérophon, Pégase et Athéna
1st century
Pompeii, Antiquarium, Caupona-house of Lucius Betucius (Vetutius) Placidus, Pompeii

74. The gods Minerva and Mercury preside over scenes of eloquence ...
Amphion builds Thebes with music,
Orpheus rescues Eurydice from hell,
Hercules binds his listeners with chains
and
Bellerophon on Pegasus slaying the Chimera
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
The Force of Eloquence
La Force d`Éloquence
1724
Palazzo Sandi, Venice

78. Jupiter seated on a cloud with eagle and thunderbolt ...
Zeus vs. Bellerophon and Pegasus.
Case Description: Complainant Zeus accuses Defendants Bellerophon and Pegasus
of trespassing. Despite Zeus's warnings, Bellerophon attempted to ride Pegasus
all the way up to Mt. Olympus.
Case Status: Case closed. Zeus sent a gadfly to sting Pegasus, causing the horse
to accidentally buck his master off of his back. Bellerophon then tumbled to his death.
The king of the gods pardoned Pegasus, however, and made the winged horse
the bearer of his thunderbolts.
Anonymous Anonyme
Jupiter and Bellerophon
Jupiter et Bellérophon
17th century
Nationalmuseum Stockholm, Stockholm

81. Pandora
The first woman ever, is responsible for the biggest oops of all time.
Way back in the day, she opened a jar full of evil and suffering, letting all that nastiness fly out into the formerly perfect world.
Even though Pandora gets a bad rap, it's not really her fault.
Zeus had Hephaestus make her out of clay and gave her the jar full of nastiness, knowing full well what she would do.
In a way, it was all a total set up, right?

82. I'm Sorry!
I was just curious, okay?
…
a small brook in a dark, primeval forest,
a large gold chest encrusted with precious stones and decorated with mythological motifs …
Pandora kneels by its side, peeking inside as she carefully raises its lid.
John William Waterhouse
Pandora
Pandore
1896
Private collection

84. Pandora having just been fashioned out of earth by Hephaestus …
Athena is about to place her gift of a robe about Pandora’s figure,
and
other gods queue behind to offer their contributions.
John D. Batten
The Creation of Pandora
La création de Pandora
1913
Reading University, Reading

86. regret and sorrow ...
the evils have all been released,
her box, now empty, with no sign of the remaining Hope.
She hangs her head in shame, resting it on her right hand as she weeps at what she has done.
(The released demons shown at the left edge are so dark that they are quite hard to see.)
Thomas Benjamin Kennington
Pandore
Pandora
1908
Private collection

89. A naked woman in a cave ...
(A Jar. See, I told you it wasn't a box. It Wasn't Really a Box. Everybody thinks I opened a box, but really it was a big jar thing - either way, it was terrible.)

90. ...
The early Christian Church drew the parallel between Pandora's story and the Fall of Man,
hence she became the pagan counterpart of Eve ...
Eve- Pandora lies naked, propped against a human skull.
Her left hand clutches the dreaded jar, which she hasn’t yet opened.
Her right hand holds a fruiting sprig of the apple tree,
an allusion to the traditional Biblical story of Eve.
Coiled around her left arm is a serpent, another reference to the Fall of Mankind.
Jean Cousin l'Ancien Jean Cousin the Elder
Eva Prima Pandora
1550
Musée du Louvre, Paris

93. Greek mythological figures who have had a tragic life
Personnages de la mythologie grecque qui ont eu une vie tragique
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Music The Piano Guys A Thousand Years
created olga_oes
thanks for watching
Merci M.C., merci Michel