[Black Europe]: Andromeda and Representations of Myth

This event is for UCL students and staff. Those from other universities welcome - please email.

For more information, contact Olivia Clarkson at olivia.clarkson.23@ucl.ac.uk.

The [Black Europe] reading group returns with a thought-provoking session led by Professor Phiroze Vasunia. We will explore the shifting racial representations of Andromeda, the Ethiopian princess of Greek mythology, and her complex visual and textual history. Through an examination of Renaissance paintings, literary depictions, and modern interpretations, we will discuss the evolving racial anxieties embedded in these portrayals.

About the session

Act 1. Andromeda, daughter of King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia of Ethiopia, should logically be depicted as Ethiopian in Greek art. Yet, ancient descriptions and artistic representations overwhelmingly present her as Greek. Even in modern film adaptations such as Clash of the Titans, Andromeda is portrayed as white.

Act 2. The 4th-century CE writer Heliodorus complicates this dynamic in his novel An Aethiopian Story, where a white-skinned Chariclea is born to an Ethiopian royal couple. The mother attributes her daughter’s complexion to having gazed at an image of Andromeda during conception.

Act 3. Renaissance-era artistic representations of Andromeda and Chariclea reflect the racial uncertainties surrounding these figures. Some earlier artworks acknowledge Andromeda’s Ethiopian heritage, while by the late 17th century, she begins to be portrayed as Black. These depictions often integrate visual cues from New World imagery, assimilating Ethiopian identity with Indigenous American figures. Such representations highlight the shifting racial anxieties tied to classical and colonial histories.

Reading Material

• Elizabeth McGrath, ‘The Black Andromeda’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 55 (1992), 1–18. Read here
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ‘Was Andromeda Black?’ Read here
• How Andromeda, the Daughter of Ethiopian Royalty, Ended Up White Read here

• Optional: Joaneath Spicer, “Heliodorus’s An Aethiopian Story in Seventeenth Century European Art,” in The Image of the Black in Western Art, Vol. 3: From the “Age of Discovery” to the Age of Abolition, ed. David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates (2010), 307–35. Read here