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Decorative Rapes

© Kirk Johnson

The photograph on the right is of Francois Girardon's sculptural group entitled "The Rape of Persephone", this was one of four groups of abductions which were intended to be placed in the water parterre below the garden facade of the château of Versailles; representing the rapes of Persephone, Orethyia, Cybele, and Coronis. Only three of these groups were ever completed and none of them were placed in the water parterre. This wasn't because people found the subject matter offensive, it was because a less cluttered design with lower sculptural groups was chosen. In 1699 Girardon's sculpture was placed at the center of the Rondelle in one of the groves of Versailles. The original sculpture has been removed to a museum and a copy now stands in its place.

I had a rather sheltered Childhood. I didn't know what the word "rape" meant until I was a freshman in High School. We were reading Edith Hamilton's Mythology in English class and when we came to the chapter about Europa, there was an illustration entitled the "Rape of Europa" which showed a smiling woman riding over the ocean on the back of a bull. I had read about the rape of Europa many times and I couldn't understand why this illustration caused the other students to blush and giggle.

I was used to looking at paintings entitled "the Rape of Europa", "The Rape of Persephone", "The Rape of Ganymede", and "The Rape of the Sabine Women". In all of these paintings someone was being carried off by force, so I assumed that I knew what the word meant. If someone had carried me off by force, I might have said that I had been raped.

When I got home from school I looked up the word "rape" in a dictionary and I was shocked to learn that it meant forced sexual intercourse. I couldn't believe that Zeus had forced himself on Ganymede, so I looked up the word in every dictionary that I could find. I eventually came across a dictionary which explained that the archaic meaning of the word "rape" was "to seize and carry away by force; to plunder".

Knowing the archaic meaning of the word "rape" may make visits to art museum a bit less awkward for parents, but abductions still strike me as questionable subject matter for garden ornaments. I can imagine a sculpture of a man in a business suit carrying off a struggling child with his hand over the child's mouth; I wouldn't want this sculpture in my garden. I can't really imagine having a copy of Girardon's sculpture in my garden. The ladies in the garden club that I belong to might be a less comfortable around me after touring my garden.

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