LEDA AND THE SWAN
Leda & the Swan - Esther Sarto.
Watercolour, gouache & acrylic medium on watercolour paper.
43 x 53 cm.
2022.
Leda and the swan is a greek myth about Zeus turning himself into a swan to seduce and impregnate a young woman/girl. It is a tale that has been depicted many times throughout art history by artists such as Michelangelo, Correggio, Cézanne and Leonardo Da Vinci.
While having been a favourite subject for many artists over the years, all these beautiful works of art have something in common. It seems that everyone has decided to agree that this was consensual and that being caressed by an aroused swan (who is really an old man) feels great. The possibility that this so-called seduction wasn’t romantic, for Leda at least, has simply not been explored. So that was my intention. To portray the other side of this story.
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
-W. B. Yeats, “Leda and the Swan”
