Something strikes me about Michelangelo’s Madonna. She is different. So different from every other Madonna that came before. She is muscular. Active. She has bare, sculpted arms and an intense expression. There are nude figures in the background. Seeing this made me realize something about every Madonna that has ever been painted. They are docile. They are enigmatic, unreachable. There is not one woman I could ever relate to or be friends with. They are some perversion of the feminine – in the same way that you pervert a wild animal to become a pet. There are so few real women in art. How can I reach out to any collaborative feminine past if I can’t understand them?
But they are all painted by men.
Could I trust any man I have ever known to reconstruct an accurate image of me?
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