When I was a girl, one of the first books which fell into my hands was the Dictionary of the mythology of Aguilar with leather covers, paper, bible and ink drawings. To my surprise and horror the Greek gods (male) and many men devoted to rape, to steal and to deceive the beautiful women and young people, whether they were or not married. The rape of the Sabines, of Proserpine, Persephone, the of Europe were stories of violence that then great painters: Rubens, Titian, Dürer, Rembrandt, and Goya transformed into art.
A little girl in awe of ten years was confronted, for the first time, the spectacle of desire violent sexist against women.
a few days Ago, in Pompeii, was discovered an ancient fresco of one of those abductions most fascinating: that of Leda and the swan. Jupiter now become a swan raped the beautiful Leda already married. The writers and poets were also seduced by this coupling is brutal and Rubén Darío dedicated several verses. All the pleasure in the male pleasure. I, in the year 2005 I wrote an essay on gender-based violence in art, I only found a poem short of Sylvia Plath. The only one that does not speak of the enjoyment of the male but the fear and the pain of Leda is that of a woman.
it Was beautiful as the face in the pond//but it was not mine.//With a haughty look//like everything in it//and I only saw dangers.//Doves, words, stars and showers of gold.//Conceptions, conceptions.//I remember the wing white and cold//and the great swan of terrible figure//down on me//castle//from the top of the river.
art and life are different. But sometimes life copies art (Oscar Wilde). I’m sure that the majority of violent men do not read Rubén Darío, nor were any of the pictorial representations of the myth of Leda and the swan, but also of the myth ignored the perspective of the victim. As sure as that the couplings bestial form part of the imaginary of the sexes. But one thing is fantasy, and reality.
Maybe he knew how to illustrate it in a way more audacious was the extraordinary Marlene Dietrich, with its eternal suggestion of the fatal woman and at the same time androgynous, that one night, in one of the most luxurious Hollywood party, presented in the guise of a swan. The white wings and the beak phallic swan had been joined forever in the beauty of women.
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