This Pandora is a serene painting underpinned by restrained tension. Pandora is represented here a moment before she opens the amphora from which, according to the myth told by the poet Hesiod, all the evils of the world poured out, with only Hope left behind within the vase.

In the early 1970s Carlos Franco was associated with the so-called movement in Madrid. His painting is influenced by British as seen through Gordillo’s personal interpretation of that movement.

His personal conception of painting, with its exceptional narrative and visual wealth, incorporates magic and mythology.

Franco’s interest in mythology and ancient Greco-Roman culture has been a constant throughout his production. In point of fact, from 1989 to 1992 he painted the facade of Casa de la Panadería in Plaza Mayor, Madrid, with a project based on mythological characters.

The light and colour, accomplished through vibrant brushwork, instil the scene with exceptional immediacy and brilliance. It seems as if the action was frozen, with Pandora hesitating for a second before performing a deed that will unleash so many consequences.

Figure and landscape are treated identically, with a brushstroke that makes no distinctions, as if the goal were to blur the limits between the two until they vanish completely. Hence, the background gains prominence, projecting outwards towards the spectator and, in doing so, swallowing up the goddess, who is returned to the earth and somehow divested of her divine nature.