AsianArs Eroticaand the Question of Sexual Aesthetics

Abstract

On a recent visit to Vienna's opulent Kunsthistorisches Museum, I unexpectedly encountered a genre painting that expressed, with art's most powerful immediacy, a central theme of this paper. The theme is philosophy's persistent pose of resistance to the seductive aesthetics of sex, and the painting, The Steadfast Philosopher by Gerrit van Honthorst (1592-1656), depicts the attempted seduction of a diligent philosopher by a lovely young woman with fully exposed breasts (Figure 1). The philosopher in the painting is a manly, moustached figure in the prime of life, seated at his desk with a pile of books to his right and an open book directly in front of him. He has apparently been interrupted in the act of writing, since his right hand holds a feathered-quill pen, while his left arm is raised forward with its fingers spread in a gesture of stop, as if to ward off both physically and symbolically the advances and attractions of the seductress who stands near the desk and seems