Joana / Portugal / 23 / Aspiring Concept Artist / Welcome to my art blog! I have a lot of characters and I love them all very much / IG and Twitter: joana_de_artes
The design has been thoroughly thought out, so I want to go into the details:
PENELOPE:
The shape of the dress is inspired by Mycenaean garments, but it's not trying to be totally accurate, while most of her jewelry pieces are replicas of actual Mycenaean jewelry.
The color of the dress is inspired by Pandora's dress as described by Hesiod in the Theogony: "And the goddess bright-eyed Athene girded and clothed her with silvery raiment, and down from her head she spread with her hands an embroidered veil, a wonder to see".
The flower she wears on her hair is a crocus and the flowers on her belt is a lotus flower. These details were inspired by a passage from the Iliad: "With this the son of Saturn caught his wife in his embrace; whereon the earth sprouted them a cushion of young grass, with dew-bespangled lotus, crocus, and hyacinth, so soft and thick that it raised them well above the ground".
The veil is a very important accessory in weddings (in both the Archaic and Classical periods). It was a decorated and precious garment and it became a symbol of the bride’s status. During the wedding the bride remained veiled for most of the day, and there was then a moment (some historians argue there were two) when the veil was lifted. This unveiling is called anakalypteria.
The veil is also a significant accessory for Penelope herself: she uses the veil to partially cover her face when she is in front of the suitors (without a male figure to protect her) and when she shows modesty in front of her father. "Like her husband Odysseus, who once used to keep her eyes lowered, for he was deep in thought, and thus his gaze eluded everyone; in the same way, when Penelope came down into the great hall, she would lift her veil over her cheeks, so that as little as possible of her expression could be seen". And "Penelope hides her face behind her veil not simply as a natural reaction to express modesty and to instil a feeling of shame in others, but also because the veil distances her from her social inferiors – to some (significant) extent she veils because the suitors are unworthy to look on her and because her rank of queen is stressed by her deliberate and eye-catching act of veiling".
I didn’t have the suns painted on Penelope’s cheeks because I've learnt they were probably only used to represent deities, not mortal women in their everyday life.
ODYSSEUS:
The tunic is inspired by Mycenaean ones.
The cloak he is wearing is supposed to be a pharos (even though it could be a tiny bit longer), worn by both men and women on special occasions and associated with weddings and lovemaking. You can read a lot about the use of this garment and other types of cloaks in the Iliad and the Odyssey here.
The brooch is inspired by the very important one described in detail by Odysseus in Book 19 of the Odyssey, during his conversation with Penelope: "There was a device on the face of it: a hound holding down a dappled fawn in his forepaws and ripping it as it scrabbled. Everyone admired the workmanship, the hound ripping and throttling the fawn, the fawn scrabbling with his feet in his effort to escape - and the whole thing done in gold".
In addition to the gifts the groom gave to the bride’s family (hedna) and to the bride herself, there were also the less-discussed gifts that the bride gave to the groom. These were usually garments she had made herself, which held great value. However, I’ll take the liberty of imagining that one of the gifts Penelope gives Odysseus for their wedding is the very famous brooch — because I really love that idea.
Odysseus' hair is not historically accurate, but I don’t really care—I’ve always pictured him with short, curly hair, and after all these years I just can't change my mind.
Sources: Theogony, the Iliad, the Odyssey, Pausania's Description of Greece, Aphrodite's Tortoise: The Veiled Women of Ancient Greece, The Eve of the Festival: Making Myth in Odyssey 19, Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality.
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