Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
"Mirtillo Crowning Amarillis", Anthony Van Dyck: 1631
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"Mirtillo Crowning Amarillis", Anthony Van Dyck: 1631
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The story of "Mirtillo Crowning Amarillis" is of shepherd Mirtillo,
disguised as a shepherdess, where many women engage in a kissing contest.
Mirtillo (disguised woman) kisses Amarillis (real woman) and wins the contest,
as nature would expect (as Mirtillo is really a man). However, women kissing
women does seem a little out of place?
Attention on the kissing couple as the crown awarded to the winner, is at
the vanishing point of linear perspective (Amarillis in the central figure in
blue), satisfying Alberti's suggestion about rhetoric tacens. The other female
nymphs, such as at the far, lower right make it clear that women enjoyed kissing
women.
The gesturing hand of the black nymph (upper left), pointing to the kissing
couple also satisfies Alberti's suggestion about rhetoric tacens.
This painting dated 1631, fits in with the discovery of the New World, populated
by black people to be used as slaves from Portuguese Africa, an example of the
new, Enlightenment program of Colonialism (consistent with the anti-anthropological,
racist views of John Locke, Voltaire, and Kant, as opposed to Samuel Pufendorf and
Johann Herder).
Saphists in the French Androgyny sects, as well as women in or associated with
the Freemasons, Illuminati, etc, were quite well aware of their inferiority to
men as to their legal rights and economic rights (the Renaissance was no re-birth
for women's rights). Slavery of women under Colonialism became a conscious issue in
France during the French Revolution. Saphism was not only about sexual issues.
Interesting articles may be found in "Early Modern Visual Culture: Representation,
Race, and Empire in Renaissance England", Erickson, Peter; Hulse, Clark; (Eds.),
especially in the last article: "Object into Object?: Some Thoughts on the Presence
of Black Women in Early Modern Culture", by Kim Hall
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