The first, Brueghel like, is of men lounging at the top of a hill (occupying the moral high ground). Women scuttle around the base, kept there because they are unclean temptresses (cheeks and hips); so far away as to reduce their voice to a distant buzz. The high ground also rightly belongs to the men as it’s a known fact that allowing women to use their brains risks uterine atrophy.
The second, seared in my memory, is of graffiti in the London School of Economics women’s loos in the early ‘70s: “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”.
Audra Lorde’s quote: “Women are powerful and dangerous” comes to mind here. Maybe it’s safer to keep us silent in case the chain comes off their bicycle.
Well, I love these associations. Is that an actual Brueghel picture, or are you thinking of something in that style or school, because if it exists I'd love to look at it?
The way Audre Lorde took it all apart, with absolute clarity, right back there in the 80s. Incredible!
It isn’t an actual picture, more an image from my recollection. Breughel (the Elder) has always fascinated me as his depictions of people as ants in the landscape, sometimes seen from the viewpoint of people on hills, (“Hunters in the Snow”), suggest what we might see from a drone or a helicopter. The images we see in the pictures are very much what we’d see looking down from a tall building or hill if we stripped away the changes made by depth perception.
This made me think of two pictures.
The first, Brueghel like, is of men lounging at the top of a hill (occupying the moral high ground). Women scuttle around the base, kept there because they are unclean temptresses (cheeks and hips); so far away as to reduce their voice to a distant buzz. The high ground also rightly belongs to the men as it’s a known fact that allowing women to use their brains risks uterine atrophy.
The second, seared in my memory, is of graffiti in the London School of Economics women’s loos in the early ‘70s: “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”.
Audra Lorde’s quote: “Women are powerful and dangerous” comes to mind here. Maybe it’s safer to keep us silent in case the chain comes off their bicycle.
Well, I love these associations. Is that an actual Brueghel picture, or are you thinking of something in that style or school, because if it exists I'd love to look at it?
The way Audre Lorde took it all apart, with absolute clarity, right back there in the 80s. Incredible!
It isn’t an actual picture, more an image from my recollection. Breughel (the Elder) has always fascinated me as his depictions of people as ants in the landscape, sometimes seen from the viewpoint of people on hills, (“Hunters in the Snow”), suggest what we might see from a drone or a helicopter. The images we see in the pictures are very much what we’d see looking down from a tall building or hill if we stripped away the changes made by depth perception.
Love your use of art to deepen subtle points here.