FEMINISM
A spectrum of misogynist stereotypes of women appear in the engraving titled Ixion, King of the Lapiths, deceived by Juno, by Pieter Van Sompel, based on the 1615 oil painting by Peter Paul Rubens. The subject is taken from the Greek myth of King Ixion attempting to seduce a phantom double of the goddess Hera, created from a cloud by Zeus. The real Hera escapes his attentions and retreats towards her husband, Zeus, who hovers in a shaft of light in the background. The snake-haired monster, Medusa, lurks in the shadows.
Pieter Van Sompel (c.1600–c.1650) after Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) Ixion, King of the Lapiths, Deceived by Juno c. 1680 Engraving on strong laid paper with watermark. Impression of c. 1680 published by Gerard Valk. Hollstein 4 (under Sompel) c. 25.5 x 33 cm Private collection
Ixion deceived by Hera; the Thessalian king seated on clouds at left and embracing Nephele, a cloud in the shape of Hera; the real Hera revealing herself at centre while Zeus looks on from a cloud in top left, a peacock and eagle accompanying the gods, two putti beyond, one of them trying to cover Nephele with a sheet, Medusa in right background.
The engraving’s imagery consists of a series of binary conceptions of women’s roles, in the doubled Hera, and in the contrast between the ferocious Medusa and the curvaceous Hera. The cloud Hera is a compliant, fantasy lover; the escaping Hera has agency, but is subject to her husband’s control, while the powerful Medusa chills men to stone.
A more domestic depiction of a Greek myth, showing gender role reversals, appears in an emblem by Albert Flamen, depicting Hercules engaged in spinning yarn, under his enslavement to Queen Omphale. His humiliation is made evident in his glazed expression, and the abandoned club at his feet. The ironic motto declares that he is “never idle”. The implication is that no man should lower himself to women’s work.
These traditional roles are subverted by the photo-screen print Women Hold up Half the Sky, by Ann Newmarch. Produced in 1978 at the height of second wave feminism, it depicts an ordinary suburban woman lifting a slender man. With his arms spread, it appears that the man holds the blue sky, while the woman supports him, her legs rising from a weedy darkness and her movement hemmed in by a weatherboard wall. Her strength is acknowledged but, with hindsight, the contemporary dilemma of women’s burden of unpaid or undervalued caring and housework is also suggested.
(Dr Anne Taylor Aug. 2019)
Albert Flamen, Devises et Emblesmes d’Amour, 1648, Plate 28, etching, 8.5x 6.5 cm
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