Aestheticising+Rape

=**__Aestheticizing Rape: Art and The Day of the Locust__**=

In her book //Endless Rapture: Rape, Romance and the Female Imagination//, Helen Hazen discusses the disconnect between the depiction of rape in art and literature and the brutal reality of rape: “rape is a significant and often even a grand act in myth and literature, [but] it is generally a very sordid and terrible one in life.” The presentation of “heroic rape” is ubiquitous in art and literary traditions. In //Images of Rape: The “Heroic” Tradition and its Alternatives//, Diane Wolfthal notes that a review of popular introductory art history texts reveals the considerable attention that “heroic rape” receives: Horst Janson’s seminal work //Art History// includes nine rape scenes. Similarly Ferederick Hartt’s //History of Italian Renaissance Art// discusses seven images of “heroic” rape scenarios. This tradition of “heroic” rape looms over contemporary artists – and the protagonist of Nathaniel West’s //The Day of the Locust// is no exception. Tod Hackett, a Yale-educated artist hales from an Ivy League institution that is steeped in the classical art tradition. Throughout the novel, Hackett is immersed in his sense of identity as an artist and he is constantly fantasizing about violently assaulting his neighbor Faye. It is hard to ignore the influence of “heroic rape” in Tod’s wish to rape Faye. A review of several famous images of rape in classical art reveal that Tod’s desire to sexually assault Faye, closely parallels the depiction of “heroic” rape that defines the artistic tradition in which Tod has been educated. To most art historians the word “rape” immediately brings to mind a few archetypal works: Poussin’s //Rape of the Sabines//, Titian’s //Rape of Europa//,, and Giambologna’s //Rape of the Sabine Woman//. In each of these depictions of rape, the assailant is a Greek or Roman god or hero figure. It was in her book //Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape//, that Susan Brownmiller coined the term “heroic rape” to refer to these types of images. What is important to note about these images is the way that they glorify and aestheticize sexual violence.

Poussin's //Rape of the Sabines//
Poussin’s Rape of the Sabines which was painted in the 1630’s and hangs today, in the New York Metropolitan Museum, is arguably the most familiar depiction of “heroic rape” to American art historians. The painting depicts a scene from the early history of ancient Rome: the Romans, unable to obtain wives peacefully, staged a festival, invited the neighboring Sabines, and, at a signal from Romulus, each violently seized a Sabine woman. Poussin makes it quite clear in the painting that the women are being seized against their will. Several of the Romans have drawn their swords, and many others chase, grab and restrain the women. The expressions on the women’s faces indicate anguish, and they are depicted as struggling violently against their captors. Other figures underline the terror of the event: babies lay abandoned on the bare earth, a distraught old woman watches helplessly on her knees, an and old man (perhaps a father) tries in vain to intervene on one of the young women’s behalf. However, art historians generally focus on Poussin's classical style or his sources in ancient art and literature (Wolfthal 8). The painting is often termed “heroic” or cited as an embodiment of “Poussin's belief that the highest goal of art is the depiction of noble human action” (Wolfthal 8). Avigdor Arikha, for example, finds the work "sublime...heroic...divine" and argues that “Poussin looked for nobility in his subject” (Wolfthal 8). Interestingly, there is one woman in the painting who, unlike the other captive females does not seem to resist the advances of her assailant. She is planted in the middle of the painting and rather than struggling to break free of him she has her head turned toward him as if she were listening to him and the appear to be walking off together (maybe even arm in arm). This couple serves to downplay the ugliness of the event and foreshadows justification of the “Rape of the Sabines” as it will later be told in history: in Italy, in the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries, the incident was viewed as a heroic, patriotic act. The Sabine women were revered as the mothers of the first Romans. Their story adorned wedding banners, marriage chests, and the apartments of noblewomen. The name Talassius, that of a Roman who obtained an especially beautiful Sabine, became a wedding motto. The Sabine legend was considered essential to the founding of Roman family life and to the future of the nation (Wolfthal 9). By placing the “happy” couple in the middle of the painting Poussin seems to justify the violence he depicts by alluding to the “favorable” consequences of the wide-scale sexual assault. Poussin also aestheticizes the scene by not depicting any actual sexual interaction, even though it is highly implied by the body language and bare shouldered Sabine women.

Giambologna's //Rape of the Sabine Woman//


A similar artistic rendition of the rape of the Sabines can be found in Giambologna's “Rape of the Sabine Woman.” In Giambologna’s statue, the Sabine woman pulls away from her Roman assailant, attempting to free herself from his grasp. Her arms flail in protest; her brow is furrowed; her downturned mouth is opened as if to cry out. Twisting painfully from her assailant’s grasp, she is certainly not a willing lover. It is hard to miss the blatant sexual assault that is depicted, yet the unveiling of the work (which was displayed in the main public square in Florence, Italy) gave rise to a variety of love-like poems inspired by the statue. One poet, Bernardo Davanzanti reads the statue as a depiction of passion declaring: “This, my Giambologna, is your Sabine from whom you burned with desire…” perhaps even insinuating love (Wolfthal 11). Like other “heroic” rape images, viewers of the piece attempt to blur the distinction between to blur the distinction between love or a truly erotic encounter and rape.

Botticelli's //Primavera//
The features of Poussin's “Rape of the Sabine Women”—the aestheticization of rape; the sanitization of the sexual aspects of the scence; and the suggestion of a happy ending --are typical of “heroic” rape imagery. In one of its other common manifestations, “heroic imagery” is often found in marital scenes. Wolfthal points out that these images were usually commissioned for two purposes on the occasion of a son’s wedding: panels on cassoni (wooden chests) and spalliera paintings that served as nearly life-size decorations for the home (10). It seems especially perverse that rape imagery would be associated with marriage and domesticity. One of the most famous examples of this type of rape imagery is Botticelli’s “Primavera,” commissioned to commemorate the marriage of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici to Semiramide d’Appiani in 1482. The painting’s central theme is celebratory, with cupid shooting his arrow toward the Charities who are dancing a “rondel.” Yet in the right portion of the painting a grimmer scene unfolds: Zephyrus, the God of the West Wind forces himself into the scene in pursuit of the nymph Chloris. We know form Ovid’s Fasti that Zephyr rapes Chloris, marries her and then transforms her into Flora (who is depicted just to the left of Chloris in the painting). Not only is this image of rape integrated into a celebratory love scene, like other depictions of heroic rape it is sanitized in the sense that it depicts neither overt violence or sexual intercourse, though the viewer is left to fill in the remainder of the story.

Gentileschi's //Susannah and the Elders//


As Wolfthal points out in her book, she knows of know "heroic rape" image produced by a woman during the Renaissance or Baroque periods. Artemesia Gentileschi however, did paint images of sexual violence, such as //Susannah and the Elders//. Susanna's story occurs in the Book of Daniel, is a fair Hebrew wife who is falsely accused by lecherous voyeurs/ As she bathes in her garden, having sent her attendants away, two lusty elders secretly observe the lovely Susanna. When she makes her way back to her house, they accost her, threatening to claim that she was meeting a young man in the garden unless she agrees to have sex with them. She refuses to be blackmailed, and is arrested and about to be put to death for promiscuity when a young man named Daniel interrupts the proceedings. As Mary Garrard points out in her book //Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany//, Gentileschi's interpretation of the event differs significantly from that of her male contemporaries (take a look below for paintings done by men of the same event and notice the differences in posture and the look on Susannah's face!). As a rape victim herself, Gentileschi clearly identifies with the woman in the paitning, who cowers away from her attackers, the look of fear troubling her face. Gentileschi depicts Susannah as vulnerable, unwilling, and her face is riddled with the anguish that is the reality of sexual violence. Unlike the male readings of the Susannah legend, Gentileschi depicts Susannah as neither a seductress nor as an object of sexual desire.

Caracci's //Susannah and the Elders//

Reni's //Susannah and the Elders//

=__Other Famous Images of "Heroic Rape":__=

Michelangelo's "Leda and the Swan" [[image:michel-leda.jpg]]
=Pontormo's "Leda and the Swan" = =Ruben's "Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus"=

Hart Benton "Persephone" (1939)[[image:persephone.jpg]]
A more contemporary artist- "Benton draws on this powerful myth to frame an image of the older, dying generation coveting the promise of youth and the new American generation."

="Rape of Lucretia" by Giulio Procaccini=

[[image:rape_lucretia_hi.jpg]]


Violence is a central motif in The Day of the Locust. As the novel progresses we see moments of increasing violence that ultimately culminate in the mob riot and gruesome murder of Adore Loomis. Tod's artistic inspiration is fueled by violence: he fantasizes not only of burning down the city of Los Angeles through pianting, but also of raping Faye. Like the "heroic rape" imagery of Tod's artistic heritage, his fantasies of Faye blur the concepts of violence and love/desire. At one points the narrator remarks that Faye's "swordlike legs" hold an invitation for Tod "closer to murder than to love" (67-68). Additionally, Tod imagines raping Faye as a heroic act: of his failed rape attempt he things "If only I had the courage..." (174). Rape then for Tod, isn't a question of brutality, but rather a heroic act reserved for the courageous.