The Animal as Agent of the Sublime in Rembrandt’s Rape Narratives and Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Abstract

In this article I will explore the relationship between man and animal as presented by Ovid in some of his rape stories narrated in the Metamorphoses. The stories I will discuss are those of Actaeon and Callisto, the rape of Europa and the rape of Proserpina. Against Ovid’s background, I will examine Rembrandt’s version of these stories. In other words, I will investigate how Ovid’s textual construction of animals vs. humans relates to Rembrandt’s painterly construction of them. Accordingly, I will explore how Rembrandt’s presentation of animals in his mythical images may reflect some of the prevalent attitudes of the period towards animals. My final goal is to address the question of the sublime in Rembrandt’s myths of human-animal transformation. Specifically, I will try to show that in his work the animals become agents of the sublime on a par with humans and gods. I will argue that similarly to Ovid’s reader, Rembrandt’s viewer experienced awe, amazement, even terror in front of his depictions of sublime passions, impossible disguises and transformations, his stories of violence, enacted collaboratively between man and animal.