Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
Rape of Ganymede: Rembrant, 1635

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Rape of Ganymede Rembrant 1635
Rape of Ganymede (now a child): Rembrant, 1635
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An "erastes", an adult man, when enamoured of a male youth, an "eromenos", he offered as a gift to the eromenos, a bird. The bird was often a cockerel. It became popular to use an Eagle to symbolize the idea of a ganymede.

Both Ganymedes and Cupids are pretty boys, and are often conflated together. Note that due to Christian propaganda, the ganymede here has become a child.

Often artistic works, sculpture or visual art such as paintings show flight, which is intended to symbolize the uplifting sensations of love. Thus scenes of Eagles raping a ganymede or a cupid figure intend not violence, but the pleasures of love.

Why an Eagle? An Eagle is a raptor, the name suggestive of rapture or to ravish, to enrapture.

Classical mythology was emphasized by the Neoplatonist humanistic philosophy of the Renaissance. Thus mythological gods and goddesses such as Jove, Apollo, Ganymede, Venus, Baccus, Aphrodite, Zeus, Eros, Uranus, etc. were emphasized in the art of the Renaissance. The Council of Trent (Councilium Tridentium), 1545-1563 was a response to the Protestant Reformation. As a result of the Council of Trent, no references would be allowed to these gods and goddesses in Neoplatonist art: no Jove, no Apollo, no Ganymede, etc. Thus references to Ganymede rapidly disappeared in art, and when Classical Greek art was referenced, meanings were radically changed. Thus homosexual meanings associated with Ganymede were removed. The figure of Ganymede changed from a pubescent, attractive effeminate figure, to a desexualized child. Thus in the painting above, the Ganymede is now a child in pain, holding a bunch of cherries in his left hand (cherries are a Christian symbol of childlike purity), urinating as children will do. Astrology begins to be replaced by astronomy, as Galileo discovered four moons of the planet Jupiter (Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto) in 1610. Ganymede has an entirely different meaning now.

It should be recalled that the Vatican censors objected to references to Classical Olympian gods and goddesses in Louis de Camões' "Os Lusíadas", 1570.

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