“Rape and Murder: “Me Too” in Italian Renaissance Art”
While enjoying the aesthetic brilliance of Italian Renaissance art, Hugh Taft-Morales was also struck by many representations of violence between men and women. Given the Supreme Court’s attack on the bodily integrity of women, we must understand better the dynamics that fuel this violence – both the oppression of women in general and waves of backlash that it creates. Hugh explores four renaissance works for insight – Bernini’s The Rape of Proserpina and Apollo and Daphne, Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, and Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith and Holofernes. Come hear what he learned.
Hugh Taft-Morales serves as Leader of the Philadelphia Ethical Society and the Baltimore Ethical Society and is a member of the Ethical Action Committee of the American Ethical Union (AEU). Hugh taught philosophy and history for twenty-five years in Washington, D. C., after which he transitioned into Ethical Culture Leadership. In April of 2009 he graduated from the Humanist Institute and was certified as an Ethical Culture Leader by the AEU in 2010.