The goddess Minerva (Athena, in the civilization of Ancient Greece) was recognized as the most skilled weaver, but a young girl, Arachne, surpassed her, although this girl "Neither by rank or lineage is she famous, but by skill" (poet Ovid).
In the competition between the two women, Athena's web was predictably large: a scene from Olympus and a tribute to the glory of the gods.
The young Arachne's web is more beautiful, she surpassed the goddess in craft, but in her web she depicted the gods as carnal beings whose whims, passions and petty jealousies create suffering in the lives of mortals.
In revenge, the goddess Minerva punished the young Arachne, tore her web and struck her.
Arachne attempted to hang herself, but Minerva saved her by saying "She lives, but still hanged" and doused her with hecatean poison (a plant of the witch goddess Hecate) and metamorphosed her into a spider to weave for eternity.
The story can be read as a parable about the power of art and the age-old antagonism between creativity and authority.
Traditionally, in art history, artistic interpretations of the Arachne myth simply depict a young woman in Greek dress seated at a loom; more recent works show a spider with a human face or a woman with a spider's head (Damien Hirst).
The novelty of the sculpture lies in the representation of the metamorphosis in motion from the stature of a woman to that of a spider.
The difficulty of creating this sculpture lies in capturing the moment of Arachne's transformation into a spider and in combining human anatomy with arachnid features.
The greatest challenge was maintaining an artistic balance between the agonizing beauty of a fragile girl and the hideous nature of her transformation.
Arachne embodies the inevitable nature of artistic passion.