Orientalist art eroticized dying women to make violence consumable
Evidence
Cultural historian Rana Kabbani observes that in this painting the violence of the narrative is linked to its eroticism; indeed, the female bodies in the throes of death are made to take on positions of languor of sexual abandon. Their dying becomes exotic spectacle, voyeuristically observed by Sardanapalus and the spectator. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 297
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- CANDY: A striking image-level detail — dead women posed in sexual abandon — that lands in conversation.
Related
- Orientalist depictions eroticized the torture and death of Eastern women (similarity 0.85)