The “Seduction in art” tab on Wikimedia Commons is full of inaccurately categorized works of art. Here are a few examples:
This is not a woman who is being seduced. This is a woman who is being bothered while she is doing her job.
Here is another example of a woman who is not being seduced. She is pushing an old man away from her, while wearing a nice gown.
Perhaps you have confused “pushing someone away from you” with “getting seduced.”
This poor lady is just trying to walk while a young man…takes her arms? I’m not sure what he’s doing. They both look enormously grave, which is not a sentiment traditionally associated with seduction.
This guy is fleeing for his life.
I feel like Michael Bluth at this point: has anyone here ever actually seen a seduction? A sad young lady who is politely listening to some guy hanging off her balcony while also weaving at a loom is not being seduced. She wants to get back to her loom.
Also running away. A key component of being seduced is staying physically present for the seduction. This does not qualify.
If a woman is sitting as far away from you as she possibly can, not making eye contact with you, completely turned so that her back is to you, clutching a bouquet of flowers and staring longingly at a plate of figs and wine, she wishes to be left alone with food, and you need to respect that.
You look me in the eyes and tell me the expression on that girl’s face is “excitement about the prospect of sex with this guy.” The sheep in the foreground looks more excited than she does. She’s clearly testing the waters to see if she can swim away from this conversation, or failing that, just drown herself.
LEAVE HIM ALONE HE IS WEARING ALL BLACK AND READING A BOOK, THAT IS THE UNIVERSAL SIGNAL FOR “LEAVE ME ALONE,” YOU LOOK LIKE THE TRIPLETS WHO LIKED GASTON IN BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
I’m not an expert on vases, but the look on this eromenos‘ face is less “Hurrah, someone is about to touch my dick” and more “why can’t you just leave me alone with my tambourine.”
In conclusion, if you are in an old painting, just leave people alone with their looms and their tambourines instead of trying to have sex with them. Also, if you work at Wikipedia, consider adopting more stringent metadata practices.
Tags: art history, artwork, metadata, no, seduction
#6: Spinning. She is spinning at a spinning wheel. She is being bothered while she is spinning at a spinning wheel which – I know firsthand – is seriously annoying, not seductive.
I clicked through just to see if anyone else noticed she was spinning. And I’m with you.
every time there’s a goddamn loom or a spinning wheel or a knitting mill or whatever someone who stitches needlepoint yells at me for getting it wrong and i will never fix it
Never change, Mallory. We love you just the way you are.
Oh really? You do know what happened to Arachne when she got all hubrisy, right?
Besides, looms don’t have that pointy-spindle-pricking-oh-so-subtle-penis-metaphor part. I’m looking at you, Sleeping Beauty folktale.
That’s a distaff, on the wheel in that painting! She’s spinning flax, and flax fibers are like three feet long. The distaff keeps the fibers from tangling.
I’m 90% sure the pointy spindle of Sleeping Beauty fame belongs to a quill-style wheel. The one in the painting is much more modern, with a bobbin and flyer.
I’m sorry Mallory but if you show me a tool for making textiles then I am completely unable to shut the hell up about that thing. At least on the internet I can’t drag people into my bedroom and force them to coo over the dresser drawers full of yarn I made.
seriously – if I am ever spinning or anywhere near a spinning wheel it means I am fulfilling or I am about to fulfill my life long dream of acting out that scene from Sleeping Beauty (the live action musical version) so you had better get away from me. It requires privacy and definitely not seduction.
And when you’re weaving, unless it’s a tricky bit, talking is allowed. People are allowed to talk. Spinning wheels are 900% less awful than spindles, but the price we pay is silence while we spin.
nah, you can talk to me while I spin, I will even talk back! I just won’t necessarily be on the same page of the conversation and my face may contort inappropriately to the context of the discussion.
conversation at the loom is trickier in my experience, all those metal heddles on the metal heddle bars while the harness frames are being lifted and lowered, and then there’s the beater, and if that’s weighted, it’s even LOUDER
that’s not even accounting for throwing the shuttle too hard and launching it aggressively into the floor
omg though Toasties to talk to me about yarn and fabric, this is all I want from life
i have yet to meet an art piece on this here website that i do not love immensely.
(the michael bluth reference! the triplets from beauty & the beast! that vase at the end! ALL SO WONDERFUL)
“consider adopting more stringent metadata practices.”
You have warmed my dark, librarian heart.
My cold metal engineer’s heart seems slightly warmer too. Perhaps it needs adjustment.
WD-40 and duck tape should fix it right up.
*bursts through the door*
DID SOMEONE SAY CONTROLLED VOCABULARY?
#4 looks like hour 15 of a dance marathon.
Maybe it’s the sheep that’s trying to seduce you, the viewer in that painting. I for one am flattered the sheep noticed me.
The sheep is definitely interested.
Do you know the sheep? Has he said anything about me? Could you introduce us? Did this conversation cross a line?
OMG yes that sheep is definitely giving the viewer the glad eye.
The man in black looks like he’s being taunted by a group of other men in drag.
You can tell he’s about to start saying the words out loud to himself, both as a way of focusing away from the distracting triplets and as a way of proving that he’s REALLY INTO his book, please leave him alone, PLEASE.
He could be Mr. Darcy … if Mr. Darcy had three young ladies courting him instead of just one.
Just in case you ever realize your dream of becoming a peasant I thought you should know that woman is working a spinning wheel, and not a loom.
DON’T CARE WON’T EVER CARE
just re-title that page “Sexual Harassment in Art”
Or “Failed Attempts at Seduction in Art”
“I’m not an expert on vases, but the look on this eromenos‘ face is less “Hurrah, someone is about to touch my dick” and more “why can’t you just leave me alone with my tambourine.”
I AM CRYING THIS IS PERFECT
I’m beginning to wonder if there are any successful/happy/consensual seductions in Western art, EVER.
In other news, about 90% of my knowledge of Western art is from The Toast. So. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I recently took a Buzzfeed quiz about how much of an art savant I was and ended up with the result that I am an EXPERT ART GEEK and it is 100% thanks to Mallory.
These two may regret it later, but they seem mighty happy right now::
http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-la…
The more examples I encounter of “seduction,” the more I suspect that it is just a palatable term for coercive sex. Please, somebody, give me an ACTUAL example? (Preferably from Western art history, in keeping with the theme).
Or, I guess:
The cackle I just emitted was not only unseemly, it woke up my toddler. But yes, this 100% counts as seduction.
I don’t think anybody can give you an example, because that’s exactly what seduction is. I’m convinced.
Uh I don’t know how to post pictures in comments cuz I’m a rube, but I would insert here any image of Jessica Rabbit casting her half-lidded eyes at Roger. That counts as Western art, right?
She can’t help it, she’s just drawn that way.
Gifs I found while searching “seduction” on giphy:
and, my personal favorite in its incongruity:
Seems legit.
A key component of being seduced is staying physically present for the seduction
Not everything’s down to bad wiki editing. The artist apparently named this one In Danger of Being Seduced, when of course Yep, That’s Pretty Swollen! How Long Has It Been Since You’ve Seen A Dentist, Again? would be a much more sensible title.
In unrelated commentary, I’m not sure if that giant dingy white beanbag couch really fits in with the rest of the decor there.
It’s the finished basement/rumpus room at Versailles.
I feel like most seduction committed by men can be summed up as “bothering a woman while she’s trying to do her job.”
this, forever and ever and ever and ever
amen
Or trying to sleep
Today I have learned that I think every picture of a lady grabbing at/trying to seduce a man who is running away is Potiphar’s wife and Joseph.
Uh, are they not?
Oh, I don’t know! I felt really clever at the first one, thinking, “Oh! It’s Joseph and Potiphar’s wife!” but then at the next one I thought the same thing, and realized there MIGHT be other scenes out there with the same basic set up.
I’m totally with you. Both sets of people are awfully white, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t Joseph and Potiphar’s wife.
And in fact, Google tells me they both are! Gold stars us.
I always think it’s Odysseus (or Aeneas, or another classic “hero”) running from a conquest.
I thought Venus and Adonis.
Um, I object. That man looks nothing like Donny Osmond.
Yes, that’s why I was concerned that I was wrong when I i.d.’d that picture. His coat wasn’t nearly colorful enough.
Nor was he participating in a delightfully boppy dance!
(Although by this point in the story, his coat has already been dipped in “blood and guts and grime” so it makes sense that he’s looking a bit dingy.)
I dearly hope that someone, somewhere, just once, has expressed their excitement over incipient sexy times by saying “Hurrah, someone is about to touch my dick!”
Also, my first thought upon seeing that vase was not ‘sex stuff is happening’, it was ‘why did that dude bring a tambourine to a doctor’s office and why isn’t the doctor wearing any clothes?’ (Sidenote: ‘hurrah, someone is about to touch my dick’ is one of the top three phrases urologists are sick of hearing at work)
Because ancient Greece.
WHAT ARE THE OTHER TWO
I’ve never understood why people think this is just The Ultimate Love picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kiss_(Klimt)
Everything in her body language screams “Gah! Get off me!” She’s got her face turned away, she’s trying to remove his hand from her face… girlfriend is NOT down for this. I’ve seen wedding invitations with this on the front, and thought, urgh, that ain’t love to me…
That’s rape culture: showing you pictures where rape is about to happen and call it “seduction”. (Apart from that; I think the picture by Klimt is ugly, but that’s just my taste)
I am extremely late to the party here (wasn’t online yesterday), but may I suggest Munch as an alternate piece of “Kiss” art? http://www.wikiart.org/en/edvard-munch/kiss-1897
Both parties in this one seem to be into making out, at least, that’s how I interpret it (hopefully correctly.) The Klimt piece is hella creepy.
Mallory, you are often very, very funny, but this is I think the funniest thing I have read in a really long time. I would like to hear more of your opinions on metadata!
THere’s also going to be Phaedra and Hippolytus.
They should create a “get the fuck away from me” tag for these and many, many other paintings Mallory has featured in her surveys of Western art.
Mallory, you are the greatest art critic of all time, even if you don’t know the difference between a loom and a spinning wheel.
I cannot stop laughing at that fleeing-for-his-life guy.
Running as fast as his chunky little legs can carry him….
There are a billion wonderful things about “erotic” Greek vase paintings. One of them is that the simultaneous-chin-and-wiener-touching gesture above is basically standardized and thus regularly (and oh so discreetly!) referred to by scholars as the “up and down gesture.” THAT’S RIGHT.
Also, there are vases featuring birds that have wieners (fine, phalloi) instead of heads (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bird-phalloi_in_ancient_Greek_pottery). If those wiener birds don’t belong in the category of seduction art, I don’t know what does.
OMG laughing SO HARD at the vase with the dickless dude looking at two dicks with eyes sitting in a giant vase while holding a dickheaded bird.
It’s like “Are You My Mother” but for dicks.
Here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bird-p…
What pitch an article about this, pitch it immediately, focus on the wieners. Please.
In his mind, Young Tim Burton: Vampire LARPer totally thinks he’s seducing those women.
“That’s right, I’m ignoring you! I’m in my own little world of dark poetry, to which you are NOT invited, petty bourgeois maidens of the sunlit realms. But you’re intrigued by my secretive, fey demeanor, aren’t you? What are you whispering about? Are you ensnared yet by my shadowed enchantment? Come over here and let me sardonically ridicule your tastes in music. Wait, where are you going? You’re supposed to try to talk to me so I can contemptuously dismiss you! Can’t you see I despise you? WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME?”
Ah, Bunthorne’s Bride!
I’m pretty sure man-in-black is a priest. That’s just wrong. https://cathcandy.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/the-ro…
My first thought was that he’s in mourning, which is even worse. I’m going to assume he’s recently widowed.
Yep, a curate or vicar of the more arid sort of Present denomination.
What is sheep man actually doing? It looks like he’s trying to make a shadow puppet with his chopsticks on the swim lady’s shadow head.
That is a much more seduction-consistent painting, the Munch; and Wikiart is still insane: “This painting captures an intimate moment between two nudes”
… They’re both fully dressed in clothes that contrast strongly with their skin. She’s got a collar and cuffs.
this snake-legged man is definitely not seducing this woman, he’s just rubbing his dick on her leg while some other man watches and a bird pokes him in the eye with a bundle of sticks or something
The eromenos doesn’t look aroused in the last picture because he’s not supposed to. See, for the Greeks (as for many peoples), sex is about power. One person is the dominant/powerful/penetrator (i.e. the male role) and the other is the submissive/powerless/penetrated (i.e. the female role). The erastes was the dominant one, and the eromenos was the passive one … but they were free young men who were going to grow up to be leading citizens, and so they couldn’t possibly have effeminate sex. So it was okay for them to accept an older man’s sexual advances in exchange for his tutoring and connections, but only as long as the eromenos wasn’t too aroused by it, because then he would be effeminate and that would be horrible. There was a whole code of what the erastes could and could not do to prevent feminizing the eromenos. Rubbing off against him (as long as he’s not aroused by it), fine. Penetrative sex they both enjoy, how horrific! (For something even worse to think about, in Greek culture it was wrong for two men of equal power/social status to have sex, but it was just fine for a free man to rape a male slave. Slaves, see, didn’t have any status to lose by being forced into the “female” role.)
On the other hand, boys became eromenos at about the same age as girls got married off, usually, but 1) the boys got a choice as to who and didn’t have to if they didn’t want to and 2) if they decided they wanted to and found out it was a bad fit or their erastes was abusive, they could break it off. But the chances of a girl/woman getting a divorce were much smaller.
nah, you can talk to me while I spin, I will even talk back! I just won't necessarily be on the same page of the conversation and my face may contort inappropriately to the context of the discussion.
conversation at the loom is trickier in my experience, all those metal heddles on the metal heddle bars while the harness frames are being lifted and lowered, and then there's the beater, and if that's weighted, it's even LOUDER
that's not even accounting for throwing the shuttle too hard and launching it aggressively into the floor
omg though Toasties to talk to me about yarn and fabric, this is all I want from life
I’d be willing to bet that both of the “man flees while woman grabs his cloak” paintings are Joseph the Dreamer with Potiphar’s wife. She yanks his cloak off, and then uses it to falsely accuse him of rape.
More important is Joseph’s jaunty little sailor suit in the second one
#MyMetadataCriticizesYourMetadata
#MyMetadataCriticizesYourMetadata
The beardy guy reclining holding up the bowl just looks like he’s about to ask for a refill on those figs.
The face-angle is weird, and I agree that I’ve always felt like there was a weird power dynamic in this photo, but that hand is *totally* a thing people do when cuddling/kissing/etc. You touch the hand that is touching you, when the feelings from the touch are overwhelming, and hold the hand from the back. Sometimes if you’re spooning you do the cute thing where you’ve put your hand over the other person’s hand and then you both lift your hands together into the air and maybe switch around to be holding hands directly. (The “you” in this comment is in the sense of “one”; obv I don’t know how you personally like to cuddle/make out, if at all).
In #4 I’m pretty sure the seduction was going on in the background with those two people on the right. The look on their faces says “we’re up to something diiiiiiirrrrrtyyyy”. Clearly, that’s what the tag was about.