Evasion
The final tactics of those with investments in the high art game are fancy footwork and sneering derision. The latter is the entire reason for this long-winded, multiple-part post; but before I get myself worked into a furious socialist monologue, allow me to elaborate.
Below we have a rare, in-depth description of a Leda and the Swan painting.
Leda was a Greek Queen of Sparta and mother of Helen of Troy (a Spartan princess),
[Status check, name drop.]
Clytemnestra, and the dioscuri twins Castor and Pollux. Greek Mythology tells the story of how Zeus, fell in love
[uh, ahem, no. Zeus did not "fall in love" with anyone, he was a dick with legs]
with the beautiful Leda, and though she was married to King Tyndareus, ["though"?! Zeus did not g.a.f. about anyone's marital status, including his own. Don't imply there was some lengthy moral quandary on his end]
The King of the gods [status drop again]
seduced her in the guise of a swan. [ah, seduction. Zeus must have used his swanny elocution to recite poetry to her. Or maybe brought her swan-themed gifts? Or probably made suggestive faces with his beady little swan eyes. Bitch no. You're using the gray area between the archaic usage of seduce meaning to corrupt, and the modern usage meaning to charm or persuade. How the fuck a swan gonna persuade someone into intercourse?]
As the elegant bird, Zeus, fell into Leda’s arms seeking protection from a predatory eagle circling above; [oh, okay. So that "seduction" from earlier was just... falling into her lap. Also, lol, last sentence he was The King of the gods, but now he's suh-suh-skurred of eagles? What you mean is, he pretended to be vulnerable to get close to his intended victim]
she stroked his feathers while the bird made love to her, [there is no mention of feather-stroking in any of the canon myths, you are making that up to downplay the fact that this scene is almost always referred to as a rape. I mean, come on. Zeus jumped on her lap while she was naked and stuck his swan dick in her. Nowhere in that narrative is her consent implied. Hell, it's rare to see consent implied anywhere in Greek myth. She's even on the rape list.
And if I may insert my personal opinion; the phrase "made love" is super gross and awkward. It also implies actual love, which again negates the rape.]
followed on the same night by Leda laying with her husband.
[But here we definitely want to use the far less sexual and ambiguous word "laying". Because if she had maritals right after she willingly fucked a swan, she's a wicked (and kinky) adultress. But at all costs we will insist the swan sex was consensual, cause that's a much easier moral hair to split. Therefore, Leda and the Swan make love but Leda merely lays with her husband.]
As a result two mortal children were born to the Queen and two demi-gods – often said to have hatched from eggs. Which two children were mortal and which two half-divine is inconsistent among accounts. Castor and Pollux are in some stories both mortal, and others both divine. Whilst the cursed and murdered Clytemnestra is never an immortal, Helen is most often described as the daughter of Zeus. [Note how slightly more words (69) are spent deliberating over the divinity of the kids than are given to the "seduction" (64) which is the actual content of the painting.]
Ovid referred only briefly to the myth in his Metamorphoses [Ovid used seventeen words]
but the image of a beautiful young queen seduced [you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.]
by a lithe swan [oh, so now the swan is sexy. Ovid seemed to have forgotten to mention a lot of things.]
proved enticing to artists [those bohemian, free-sexed artists were just so enticed... by their wealthy patrons' requests.]
in Roman times, and indeed remained so well into the nineteenth century. [note that they make an arbitrary cut-off at the nineteenth century. Perhaps because it's easier to argue that your porn is classy high art if it's been grandfathered in. Or maybe because you could get a new picture of swan rape from a living artist for much cheaper. At any rate, all those new ones don't exist.]
Le Moyne was certainly inspired by the sixteenth century artist Correggio’s Leda and the swan, a painting which in Le Moyne’s time had recently been acquired by the Duke of Orléans, regent of France in the early years of Louis XV’s reign. [Oh, I'm sorry, did I just drop that name oh yes bitch I did]
Correggio’s painting (today in Berlin) [was stabbed by that duke's son RIGHT IN THE FACE! He had a lil bitty freakout religious tantrum because he was morally outraged at... the... bestiality... NEVERMIND.]
shows Zeus, as a swan, between Leda’s parted legs, leaning against her nude body. The bird’s beak stretches to kiss the smiling daughter of the Aetolian king Thestius [DON'T FORGET SHE IS VERY HIGH STATUS AND SO IS HER DAD SO THIS WEIRD BESTIALITY SCENE IS CLASSY A.F. AND NOT TRASHY LIKE ALL THAT OTHER BESTIALITY PORN]
whilst her companions frolic in a pond and winged Eros plays songs of love. [wow, so delightful! Frolicking and songs, you guys! This is not like an animal forcing itself sexually on an unwilling victim at all!]
Le Moyne’s portrayal of the scene concentrates only on the two immediate characters in the story and in doing so establishes an intimacy perhaps more appropriate to a tale of seduction. [intimacy and seduction are both very important words when trying to plaster intellectualism and class over your overt pornography. Again, how does a swan seduce?]
The square canvas is composed of a singular strong diagonal, comprised of the swan’s body and neck, the figure of Leda, and the tree behind her. [look how super serious we are talking about composition n shit. If this was porn, would we be saying these things? Heck no.]
Several pentimenti however, demonstrate that the swan may have originally been placed more centrally, perhaps closer to the pose of Correggio’s Leda. [and now we're all comparing/contrasting composition n shit. You have never beheld such scholarly serious high art discussion as you have witnessed here today. In plain English, they're saying the swan was probably initially right up in her snatch.]
Jean-Luc Bordeaux, who has studied the artist extensively and is the author of the catalogue raisonné (soon to be updated in a revised version) [he is still super relevant plz believe me],
has written of this painting ‘the very original compositional interpretation of this subject belongs entirely and without hesitation to Le Moyne.’ [holy christ, now we're quoting authors of catalogue raisonnés! It just means "explained catalog", but how much more legit does this sound in French?! Pro tip: never translate foreign languages or obscure jargon in your text. Don't even put a footnote translation in there. Because how else are the privileged few who know what it means going to feel superior? Won't you think of them?]
In Le Moyne’s narrative one of Leda’s hands pulls back the fabric which had served to preserve her modesty, [it's not porn if we can identify the symbolism in the narrative. Porn doesn't have either!]
whilst the other holds the swan’s neck in a way that shows she is not only a willing partner but could quickly terminate the encounter should she so desire. [and we would just like to reiterate again that THIS IS NOT NOR HAS EVER BEEN RAPEY WOW SO CONSENSUAL]
Unlike his pupil Boucher’s composition, where the young queen and her companion appear to shrink back in fear from the approaching bird, Le Moyne’s Leda seems to welcome the Swan’s embrace. [I'm actually surprised they included this bit, because even though it's yet again affirming how very super duper consensual this sex painting is, it's introducing the reader to the fact that some artists actually depicted it as a rape.]
The alluring Leda here precedes by two years the painter’s monumental-scale composition Perseus and Andromeda (1723, The Wallace Collection, London). [provenance! artistic resume! expensive-sounding art collections!]
Le Moyne’s Leda and Andromeda mirror each other physically, while billowing fabric is draped across their left arms and the hair of both women seems to be similarly styled. [image description dressed up as scholarly comparison.]
Their blond tresses, the warm, golden tones of their skin, their rosy cheeks and the rounded soft modelling of their torsos and breasts are characteristic of Le Moyne’s restrained eroticism. [Yeah. "restrained eroticism" is a phrase you find in Leda and the Swan descriptions a lot. What does that mean, exactly? Bondage? Just the tip? Keeping your socks on?]
In his Leda and the Swan the brilliantly nacreous whites and pale greys in the swan’s downy feathers seem to caress Leda’s skin while the soft clouds behind the entwined figures melt into the diaphanous green foliage of the tree. [aaand throw in a few ridiculously overwrought words for that sweet sweet flavor of inaccessibility]
This gem was swiped from the "literature" (cough cough product description ahem) regarding the painting below, at a fancy-pants gallery in downtown London.
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| FRANÇOIS LEMOYNE WHO IS VERY FAMOUS WE ASSURE YOU. |
Basically, evasion is when high art investors throw as many verbal smoke bombs as they can in the hopes that you'll be so dazzled by adjectives, jargon, and status you'll be sufficiently distracted from THE SWAN HAVING PENETRATIVE SEX WITH A HUMAN.
If you feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, I totally agree. But let me introduce you to the most insidious form of cultural bullying.
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