Hearing: Something to See

To the left are two very different seventeenth-century images of listening. The first, Peter Paul Reubens's Hercules and Omphale, was painted in 1606 and hangs in the Louvre in Paris. The second, by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, is entitled Portrait of the Mennonite Preacher Cornelius Anslo and His Wife, Aeltje Schouten, and is dated 1641 (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin). Professor Andaleeb Banta in Amherst's Art History Department shared the Rembrandt image with us; take a look at the preacher's wife's headdress, which is shaped like a second ear.

We might want to think about the gendering of hearing in these images, as well as about the intentional vs. unwilling absorption of sound -- all interesting topics in light of Epicoene, certainly, but also in connection with Chaste Maid.