THE RAPE OF EUROPA
THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS // HOUSTON, TEXAS
I set my eyes upon this painting for the first time when I was 8 years old, on a playdate with a friend whose mom took us, and our sketchbooks, to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston in search of artistic inspiration. I found my muse in the chalky-white bull of Laurent de la Hyre’s 17th century painting, in which a woman drapes over the animal’s back, flocked by nymphs and fleshy cherubs. Of course it was the bull I was drawn to, with eyes like dewdrops and a pink nose soft and wet, crowned in ringlets of flowers. A vision of pastoral daydreams, caught in a pose. I sketched the bull as deftly as my small self thought it could, and then the scene settled like dust to the bottom of my brain.
The painting is titled 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘢𝘱𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘢 — after the Greek myth itself, also referred to as “The Abduction of Europa” or “The Seduction of Europa” — but I did not know this until I happened upon the painting at the museum again many years later, in my early twenties. Even then, I instantly recognized the dazzling bull I had once been drawn to as a young girl. My memory of Greek mythology was hazy, and it was not until I drew forward to read the title that I had to resist letting out a laughing choke in recognition of the subject.
For anyone hazy on their Greek mythology, too: the scene depicts Zeus transforming into a beautiful bull to seduce the Phoenician princess Europa. Enamored by the docile animal, she ties flowers along its broad neck and climbs onto his back. He then drags her out to sea and marries her, wading all the way to the island of Crete where he installs her as its first queen. She is the mother of Minos, future King of Crete.
Europa is wooed by deception, just as I am; we are both drawn in by the fuzzy-eared bull cloaked in white. A bright and disarming white, painted the shade of pure intention. But it is, of course, a false signaling — though what young girl could imagine the treachery lurking behind such a friendly form? The irony of my own experience with the painting can only be described, I suppose, as a double-layered allegory of a loss of innocence, a woman’s experience as she grows to understand the world. Historically, the framing of Europa’s story vacillates between varying levels of assault (the titular interchange of “rape,” “abduction,” and “seduction” convey just that), but there is no denying that she is deceived by the docility of the animal, forced towards a violent awakening.
What does it mean that the continent of Europe would go on to be named after her, placing her as the symbolic mother of nations? Is it a message of rebirth, of perseverance and strength? Or is Europa to be forever plundered, treaded on by the throngs of men who claim her, scarring lines and boundaries across her expanse? There is a positive analysis in here, somewhere — in which Europa is awarded agency, a symbolic redefining of her narrative. The answer, I'm sure, lies somewhere in between.
11.5.2020