According to Greek mythology, in the beginning, the earth was free from toil and misery. The land was covered with flowers, and the rivers flowed with milk and honey. Earth was inhabited only by men, who had been created by Prometheus. He made them of clay and modeled them after the gods, which angered Zeus, the king of the gods. When Prometheus offended Zeus again by stealing fire from heaven to give to man, Zeus exacted revenge. He ordered Hephaestus, the god of the forge, to create Pandora, the first woman. The gods gave her many traits including beauty, curiosity, charm, and cleverness. Hence her name Pandora, which means “all gifted” or, alternately, “a gift to all.”

Before he left Pandora on earth, Zeus handed her a beautiful box saying, “This is my own special gift to you. Don’t ever open it.” As Zeus anticipated, Pandora’s curiosity got the best of her, and she opened the box, ending the earthly paradise. From the small chest flew troubles and woes—sorrow, disease, vice, violence, greed, madness, old age, death—to plague humankind forever. Only hope remained at the bottom of the box to counter those ills.

Pandora was created by French painter Odilon Redon, who lived at the same time as the impressionist artists like Claude Monet. While they painted the life they saw around them—the French countryside, the bustle of Paris—Redon painted from his imagination. He suffered a lonely childhood, shut away as an invalid much of the time. He once wrote to a friend, “The events that left their mark on me happened in days gone by, in my head.” He was known as a mystic and a dreamer who was interested in exploring “a reality that is felt.” That is shown here by his concentration on Pandora’s fascination with the gift prior to her opening it. In other paintings of the same subject, the consequences of her curiosity are more often portrayed.

Discussion Questions:

• What moment of the story has the artist chosen to depict? (The moment in which Pandora is deciding whether or not to open the box.) What makes this moment so dramatic? (We know that her decision to open the box will release plagues, suffering, and evil into the world.) Why might Redon have chosen this moment to paint?
• How would you compare the size of the figure of Pandora to the rest of the painting? Why might the artist have painted her so big? (Two answers may be: because she is the most important character in the story or because of the overwhelming consequences of her actions.)
• The figure of Pandora is often shown with a box in her hand. What does this box symbolize? (It can symbolize different things, two of them being the evils of the world and temptations that we can’t resist because of curiosity.)
• What object was painted almost in the center of the painting? (The box Pandora will open.) Why do you think the artist painted the box there? (The box is an important part of the story, and the artist wanted it to be one of the first things you see.) How does the artist use color to lead our eyes to the box? (While the rest of the painting has light, cheery, tranquil tones, the box is painted in contrasting dark browns and purples.)
• What mystery about the world is explained by this story? (It explains how the troubles and woes of life—as well as hope—came to be.)
• How was the world affected by the choices Pandora made? If you were Pandora, do you think you would make the same choice? Why or why not?