object of desire

by graylyn rhee

My second collage was also inspired by the Timothy Morton quote: “Putting something called Nature on a pedestal and admiring it from afar does for the environment what patriarchy does for the figure of Woman. It is a paradoxical act of sadistic admiration.” The collage is located in the waters of the Garden of Earthly Delights amidst human indulgence in the middle panel of Bosch’s painting.  I drew my source material from Manet’s Olympia, Ruben’s The Rape of Proserpina, Le Sueuer’s The Rape of Tamar, de Troy’s The Abduction of Europa, Titian’s The Rape of Europa, and from the Bosch painting itself.
   This collage serves as a continuation of my first collage – Figure of Woman – in its representation of man’s sadistic admiration of woman. Where the first collage was intended to represent the inevitability of Woman being placed on a pedestal, this second collage is intended to serve as a reminder of the inevitability of this power dynamic from the creation of woman to humanity’s reign on earth. In the center panel of Bosch’s painting, humanity has transitioned from the Garden of Eden to more of an earthly location, indulging in sensory pleasures and erotic activities. Men and women do not experience this newfound freedom equally, however; throughout the panel, men are seen staring at, grabbing, and parading around their female counterparts. While from a distance the panel appears to be a representation of human desire, at closer view, the emphasis on male lust becomes apparent. 
   Four of the paintings I drew fragments from are depictions of the violations of women in various religious paintings. Unlike the Bosch painting, these paintings are violent depictions of rape with a clear male perpetrator and female victim. I centered the four heads of the men – Zeus (x2), Pluto, and Amnon –  around Bosch’s more subtle depiction of the power dynamic – a man grasping a woman’s arm – and the face of the confrontational prostitute from the Manet painting. As the eyes of the rapists are on her, her eyes are on the viewer, forcing the viewer to make eye contact with her as she is subject to every man’s sadistic admiration of woman. The supposed pleasures – “delights” – that are meant to be represented in the center panel of the Bosch painting are merely extensions of a relationship between man and woman as old as creation: the subordination of woman to male power and desire.