TITIAN'S EUROPA AS PHALLIC MOTHER

Author(s): Bradley Collins

Source: Source: Notes in the History of Art , Winter 1997, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Winter 1997),
pp. 26-32
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Bard Graduate Center

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23204917

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 TITIAN'S EUROPA AS PHALLIC MOTHER

Bradley Collins

Titian's art, with its frankly sexualand,Vetrue to several aspects of Ovid's tex
nuses, bacchanals, and loves of the shows
gods, Europa hanging precariously on
seems well suited for psychoanalytic one
inves of Zeus's horns and turning her h
towardat
tigation. Yet Titian has attracted little land.3
tention from analysts. Perhaps his apparAlthough the conventional title is techni
ently nonpathological character and cally
noninaccurate, it is easily accepted. The
sensational private life have made himviewer
a not cannot help thinking about the next,
very compelling subject. One exceptionclimactic,
is stage of the story, and Titian en
Adams's discussion of The Rape of Eu this by adumbrating Europa's
courages
ropa, the various Danaes, and The Bac violation. Her garments are al
imminent
chanal of the Andrians, in which she
readydis
falling from her body, and her legs
covers implicit—and sometimes explicit—
are parted.4 Her pose is so agitated that she
seems
depictions of both the primal scene and theto be in the throes of sexual inter
varied reactions of infantile witnesses.1 Of And Titian deploys various com
course.
positional
the paintings Adams examines, The Rape of and stylistic devices—thrusting
diagonals,
Europa (Fig. 1) is arguably the richest in vivid passages of red, sensuous
psychosexual content, and her remarks paint
do handling, and so forth—to evoke the
much to illuminate this work. One passions
can, of the sexual act. So one seems to
however, take her interpretation several
witness both an abduction and a rape. And
steps further and show that The Rape this places
of one in the position of the child
who misperceives parental coitus as a vio
Europa contains symbolic representations
lent exchange.
of castration anxiety and the phallic mother
as well as of the primal scene. But The Rape of Europa s allusions to
The Rape of Europa depicts a "rape" the primal scene extend beyond the implicit
representation
only in the archaic sense of "an act of of sexual intercourse. As
Adams
forcibly seizing and carrying away." Ac points out, Titian includes an in
fantile
cording to Ovid's Metamorphoses, onwitness in the form of the amarino
which Titian relied for his account of in
the
the lower left-hand corner (Fig. 2). This
myth, Zeus appears on the shores of location
Sidon below Zeus and Europa reinforces
disguised as a white bull. Europa, whothe amarino's
is status as the infant who must
disporting on the beach with female look
comup at parental figures. He not only
panions, admires the striking creatureviews
withthe immediate prelude to Europa's
violation, but also stares specifically at her
his "silky muscles" and "dainty" horns.2
After she innocently climbs on Zeus's vaginal
back, area. The intensity of his glance—
he suddenly plunges into the waves andand ab
the viewer's own gaze—is wittily ech
oed by the large, protuberant eyes of the
ducts her. Titian represents this moment

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 n

Fig. 1 Titian, The Rape of Europa. 1559-1562. Oil on canvas, 73" x 81". Isabella Stewart Gard
Museum, Boston

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 28

Fig. 2 Titian, The Rape of Europa (detail)

two fanciful fish and the bull. These vehe
ment eyes stare out at us from the canvas,
both returning our voyeuristic response and
challenging it.
The sightline of the amarino s gaze falls
along the painting's dominant line of force.
This diagonal extends from the tail of the
dolphin in the lower left-hand comer to Eu
ropa's outstretched arm at the far right. It
forms the more prominent half of a tilted V
composition, completed by the two flying
putti in the upper left. Titian aligns along
this strong diagonal a series of objects that
are remarkable in their psychological sig
nificance. By deciphering the unconscious
logic of this series of forms, we discover a
wealth of meanings that include not only
castration anxiety, but also a defensive re
sponse to it in the form of the phallic
mother fantasy.
The central psychological element of this
diagonal is the amarino's gaze. He looks,
with what Nash calls a "distressed" ex
pression, between Europa's open legs to
ward her genitals.5 Although her pubic are
is not exposed, it is only lightly veiled by

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 29
fluttering fabric. The drapery folds, more
over, form a small V and only accentuate
what is concealed. The amarino stares,
then, at the fundamental source of castra
tion anxiety—the woman's penisless va
gina. That this sight has implications for his
own genitals is made clear compositionally
by the alignment along the major diagonal
of his penis, the sightline of his gaze, and
Europa's vagina. The terrifying prospect
that he, too, might lose his penis and be
come a woman is also represented by the
mirroring of the amarino''s and Europa's
contrapposto poses. Their limbs, in particu
lar, splay out in a parallel fashion.
As those familiar with classical psycho
analytic theory well know, the male child
may respond to a woman's lack of a penis
by denying it. He cannot imagine that any
one could be deprived of something so pre
cious and believes that everyone, including
his mother, possesses a genital like his own.
We can see a symbolic re-creation of this
process in two of the objects that Titian
places between the amarino's staring head
and Europa's vagina. One of these is the
bull's long tail, which seems to emerge
from between Europa's legs. The tail, as
Freud notes in his study of Leonardo, is not
only phallic in shape, but the word for it in
Italian—coda—is a slang term for the male
genital. The other object is Europa's right
foot. The foot, too, has phallic qualities;
hence, its popularity as a fetish. So Titian
allows the amarino to deny his castration
fears by doubly endowing Europa with a
phallus. She becomes, then, the phallic
mother of infantile fantasy. And one of her
phallic attributes is the very object—the
foot—that figures so heavily in fetishism, a
perversion derived from the denial of cas
tration anxiety and the unconscious insis
tence on a maternal phallus.
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Yet the amarino's defense against cas
tration anxiety does not end with the phal
lic-mother fantasy. Titian also provides the
amarino with a second, extended penis in
the form of the tail he straddles. This dol
phin's tail, like the bull's tail which it ech
oes, seems to emerge from between the fig
ure's limbs, It is, moreover, directly aligned
with the amarino's own small genital and
seems to enlarge it. Thus, his own phallic
power is strengthened in the face of the
threat posed to it by Europa's "castrated"
genitals. But despite such measures, the
amarino''s masculine status is not com
pletely secured. The resulting similarities
between his figure and Europa's—both end
up with curving tails between the legs of
their twisting bodies—make it seem as if he
has not only produced the image of a phal
lic mother, but also identified with it.
Titian's diagonal supports an astonish
ingly complex and varied set of uncon
scious defensive maneuvers. And the viewer
can recapitulate these maneuvers as his
glance slides up and down the diagonal's
axis. One begins with the amarino''s gazing
head, then moves up to the trigger of his
distress: Europa's vagina. Then one shifts
down to the various denials and reassur
ances: Europa's right foot, the bull's tail,
the amarino's own penis, and, finally, the
dolphin's tail. One can even locate defen
sive measures at the opposite end of the di
agonal. Europa's outstretched right arm
casts a shadow over her face and obstructs
her already constrained vision. This is a
"blinding" that negates the amarino's all
too open view of sexual matters.6 And, al
though his gaze is unobstructed, the
amarino's staring face is itself partially
hidden from the viewer. Indeed, clear-eyed
vision is so charged and problematic in the
painting that Titian fully represents it only
 30

in those figures—the fish and the bull—that much ink has been spilled debating Titian's
look away from Europa's body. actual literary sources and the true meaning
Castration anxiety and the defenses of the iconography.8
against it often play a central role in the ex Most scholars agree that the painting
perience of the primal scene. The male contains enigmatic contradictions in tone.9
child, while viewing parental intercourse, It displays bright colors and a sensuous
may see his mother's genitals and have the paint handling that is in keeping with its
possibility of castration confirmed. Such lively eroticism. Yet, at the same time, Eu
was the case with the most famous of all ropa's frenzied pose and the perturbed ex
witnesses of the primal scene—Freud's pressions of the bull and the amorini create
"Wolfman."7 And the Wolfman's dream,a darker mood of tragedy and frustration.
which Freud interpreted as a response to theEuropa's fear is understandable. She has
primal scene, shares some strikingly similarbeen abducted and does not know her fate.
features with The Rape of Europa. This But why don't the bull and the putti con
much-analyzed psychic artifact involved six duct themselves in a more festive and tri
or seven white wolves sitting on theumphant manner? After all, Jupiter will
branches of a tree and scrutinizing the soon disclose his true identity to Europa,
dreamer. Strangely, the wolves had large, and she will eventually give him three sons.
bushy tails, which compensated for the Art historians have offered various solu
castration anxiety arising from the Wolftions to this problem. Nash, for example,
man's exposure to coitus. So, again, we see argues that the somber aspects of the work
the tail as a reassuring phallic symbol. The are consistent with its status as a spiritual
dream also resembles the painting in dis allegory of death and unification with
placing the infantile witnesses' intense gaze God.10 But what is important from the psy
onto other figures. Just as the wolves, choanalytic standpoint is that Titian had a
rather than the Wolfman, look out with wide range of interpretive choices at his
"strained attention," so the fish and the bull, disposal. And this leaves open the possibil
rather than the amarino, stare out fixedly at ity that his unconscious influenced these
the observer. choices. The universality of primal-scene
Certain of these psychologically sugges fantasies and castration anxiety also argues
tive elements in The Rape of Europa are so in favor of a role for Titian's unconscious
insistent that we have to wonder to what in the painting. We do not need to know
extent Titian was consciously aware of
every detail of the artist's inner life in order
them. And, more generally, we would like to assume that he, like all other males, once
to know the psychobiographical context forimagined or saw parental intercourse and
the creation of the work. Unfortunately, the feared the loss of his genitals. At the same
answers to such questions are even harder time, we should not underestimate Titian's
to come by than is usually the case in apconscious involvement in a subject that was
plied psychoanalysis. Titian, who was elexplicitly sexual. One suspects, for exam
derly when he accepted the commission forple, that Titian consciously intended the
the painting from Philip II, left little in thebull's tail to serve as a sly touch of visual
way of autobiographical commentary. Eveninnuendo. And who would be more likely
the manifest content remains unclear. And than this sophisticated and worldly painter

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 31

to orchestrate a complex parody of the
spectator's impulse to look?11
Do other phallic mothers exist in Italian
Renaissance art? It seems fitting to end this
paper by citing another prominent example
from the work of an artist who was Titian's
equal. Recently, French psychoanalyst An
dre Green has argued persuasively that
Leonardo's London cartoon makes a phallic
mother out of Saint Anne.12 He notes the
confusing arrangement of limbs and points
out that one can easily assign the Virgin's
left leg to Anne. If one does so, Anne ap
pears to possess a third, phallic limb. This
leg not only seems to hang between Anne's
outspread knees, but also dangles just be
low a deep vaginal indentation created by
drapery folds. It is, moreover, aligned with
the Christ child's genitals. We have, then,
in both the London cartoon and The Rape
of Europa vivid proof that powerful uncon
scious forces can inform not just strange or
lapsed works, but those of the most sur
passing mastery.

NOTES

1. Laurie Schneider Adams, Art and Psycho emotional state of the amorino in the lower left
analysis (New York: 1993), pp. 232-237. J.hand La corner. For example, Maurice Shapiro, in his
"Titian's 'Rape of Europa,'" Gazette des Beaux
planche and J.-B. Pontalis, in The Language of Psy
cho-Analysis, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (New Arts 6 (1971): 109—116, characterizes this putto as
York and London: 1973), p. 335, define the "primal not distressed, but "free and gay." And Adams has
scene" in the following manner: "Scene of sexual described him as "eager." Titian casts the amor
intercourse between the parents which the child ob face in nearly a profil perdu, and this makes
ino's
serves, or infers on the basis of certain indications,
his expression ambiguous. But even if we cannot
and phantasies. It is generally interpreted bydetermine
the his attitude with certainty, we can see his
child as an act of violence on the part of the father."
anxiety displaced onto the more clearly perturbed
2. Ovid: The Metamorphoses, trans. Horace expression of the central flying amorino. Signifi
Gregory (New York: 1958), p. 82. Another likely cantly, this amarino, like his companion, looks in
literary source for Titian's painting is Achilles Tadirection of Europa's genitals. One also finds a
the
tius's second-century-A.D. Greek novel of Leucippe troubled amarino as childhood witness to the primal
and Clitophon. This novel was translated by the scene in the Venus and Adonis in the National Gal
Venetian Humanist Lodovico Dolci and contains an lery (Washington, D.C.), where the Cupid assuages
ekphrasis of a painting of Europa's abduction. See his castration anxiety by clutching a phallic bird (cf.
Donald Stone, "The Source of Titian's Rape of Eu Adams, p. 237). And a conflicted amarino appears
ropa," Art Bulletin 54 (1972):47—49, and David Ro in the Danae with Cupid (Museo Capodimonte) in
sand, "L/í Pictor Poeta: Meaning in Titian's Naples (cf. Adams, p. 235).
'Poesi,'" New Literary History 3 (1973):527-546. 6. One can also see Europa's blinding, like Oedi
3. Several scholars have pointed out, however, pus's, as a symbol of castration. She becomes, then,
that Europa appears to look at the flying amorini, doubly castrated in her blindness and in her female
not at her companions on the shore. state just as the bull's tail and her right foot make
4. Paul Watson, in his "Titian's 'Rape of Eu her doubly phallic.
ropa': A Bride Stripped Bare," Storia dell'Arte 28 7. Sigmund Freud, "From the History of an In
(1976):249—258, argues that the amorini are in the fantile Neurosis" (1918), Standard Edition (Lon
process of stripping Europa bare so that she be don: 1955),XVn,pp. 7-122.
comes a "bride . . . revealed to her husband." 8. For discussions of The Rape of Europa's ico
5. Jane C. Nash, "Titian's 'Poesie' for Philip II" nography and for Titian's literary sources, see
(Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1960), 91. Alastair Smart, "Titian and the Toro Famese,"
Scholars have provided divergent accounts of the Apollo 85 (1967):420—431; Erwin Panofsky, Prob

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 32

I ems in Titian, Mostly Iconographic (New York:
1969); Shapiro, 109-116; Stone, 47^19; Rosand,
527-546; Harold E. Wethey, The Paintings of Ti
tian, 3 vols. (London: 1975), HI; P. Fehl, "Ovidian
Delight and Problems in Iconography: Two Essays
on Titian's Rape of Europa: The Cows," Storia
dell 'Arte 28 (1976):37-95; Watson, 249-258; Nash,
op. cit.; and id., Veiled Images: Titian's Mythologi
cal Paintings for Philip II (Philadelphia: 1985). For
a sensitive account of The Rape of Europa's formal
qualities and in particular Titian's paint handling,
see David Rosand, "Titian and the Eloquence of the
Brush," Artibus et Historiae 2 (1981 ):85—96, and
id., The Meaning of the Mark: Leonardo and Titian
(Lawrence, Kans.: 1988).
9. On The Rape of Europa's paradoxical combi
nation of sensuality and tragedy, see Stone, op. cit.;
Shapiro, op. cit.; Nash, Veiled Images.
10. Nash, Veiled Images, pp. 62-66.
11. In this respect, Manet's Olympia owes as
much to The Rape of Europa as to The Venus of
Urbino. The fish and the bull anticipate Victorine
Meurent's indomitable response to the male specta
tor. The painting also has affinities with Lacan's
concept of the gaze in which to see is also to be
seen. See Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental
Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, trans. Alan Sheridan
(New York: 1978). Finally, Richard Wollheim,
Painting as an Art (Princeton: 1987), p. 312, em
phasizes the importance of the gaze for Titian:
"Indeed for Titian the distilled essence of action is
the gaze: the probing, searching activity of the eye,
seeking to gain knowledge, to express adoration, to
arouse desire, to catch, to return, to elude, the gaze
of the other.
12. André Green, Révélations de L'Inachéve
ment: A Propos du Carton de Londres de Léonard
de Vinci (Paris: 1992). One art historian, who does
not have a psychoanalytic axe to grind, goes halfway
toward Green's interpretation. Patricia Leighton, in
"Leonardo's Burlington House Cartoon," Rutgers
Art Review 2 (1981):31^42, identifies the same po
tential misreading of the limbs and also reads the
indentation of the drapery folds as womblike. Ac
cording to Leighten, all of this is consistent with the
work's status as a Child Issuant Madonna.

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