“Phyllis has penetrated his private and professional domain; he bows under her weight and yields to her authority. More interesting, to me, is how she presented. Unlike other depictions, which focus on Phyllis’ beauty or render her a caricature, Spranger’s Phyllis is heroic. This body positioning, of one arm upraised, brandishing a weapon, is masculine and is usually reserved for heroes and leaders. So while the tale itself is comical and moralizing, Spranger interprets Phyllis as a more powerful force, reminiscent of female leaders, like Jeanne III de Navarre (1528-1572), Elizabeth I of England (1533-1603) and Marie de’ Medici of France (1575-1642). The image comes across not as a moralizing exemplum but simply a noble victory of beauty over rhetoric, love over reason.”
- Christina Voss in this week’s Erotica Curiosa (F/lthyGorgeousTh/ngs)
Phyllis and Aristotle. Jan Sadeler, after Bartholomeus Spranger (c. 1590), engraving