BODY

“When Titian’s show, Love, Desire, Death came to the National Gallery, I walked into the room, and trembled. I stood before Titian and trembled to see the bumps of paint rising off of the tensioned surface of the ancient canvas. To allow my own sight to roam and ramble across its woven and sutured face, to linger with impropriety, close, close enough to breathe her in, what an incredible luxury. There is a warm reflected light, this delicate ochre under her left thigh. It is heartbreaking. 

But what was I in love with? Was it her with her round and fecund belly, her fat thighs parted slightly in agitated invitation? Was it the titillation of the abduction itself? Was it my fascination with the tiny head of the triumphant bull? Was it just education? Did I know that because I was an artist, and a painter to boot, that it was my responsibility to tremble before Titian, and if not him, certainly before Europa herself? 

The more I looked, the more I wondered why it was beautiful. I was agitated, in love with an image of not seduction but abduction. I felt myself adjust my compass, and overcome my objection, which I was figuring as female discomfit. I was masculine enough to see past the violence into the beauty. 

In bringing Titian’s metamorphosis cycle, painted for King Phillip of Spain’s private bedrooms in palaces scattered across Europe together for the first time, the museum had brought private paintings into public. Phillip had commissioned these – he was excited by stories of rape. How can I love the movement of the cloth, the depth of the blue, the dimple of her thigh?

I stepped back, sat on the bench in front of The Rape of Europa and engaged in my slow-looking meditation. I would see the image, the material, and allow it to both fill and drain with meaning as I engaged in my mezmerizing drawing practice. I did not know what would come of this intimate exploration of her body, Europa, or his desire to paint it, or His desire to own it. I just knew that she called me, as did my own desire to answer that call, and the only way to understand it - or have a hope of understanding it one day, was simply to notice. 

That show was four years ago. These are the first four drawings I made in that session. I've had her image on my studio wall or floor for years. His book on my coffee table, on my desk, never knowing how Titian or Europa might enter my work, but unable to shake the multitudinous connections I feel to them both. Now, she has entered the work - a few strokes here and there, her hand over her head, the red cloth of passion marching across the work, a false flag, waving, waving, and no one is noticing.”

- Kate Howe on their ‘Rape of Europa’ works.