Duck, Duck, Goosed

(After Michelangelo, Leda and the Swan, after 1530; oil on canvas; London, National Gallery.)


Well, to be accurate, swanned. But that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. In any case, in mentally perusing paintings that depict the zoological passions of pagan myth, I arrived inevitably at the above work, which I am fortunate enough to have seen in London. The myth of Leda and the swan, in which Zeus disguises himself as a white waterfowl in order to seduce the mortal Leda without attracting the attention of Hera, has been depicted fairly frequently in European art from antiquity to the nineteenth century (by Paul Cézanne and Gustave Moreau, among others). This particular painting is by an unknown sixteenth century artist after a lost work by Michelangelo. The original was apparently rejected by its initial patron, Alfonso I d’Este, the duke of Ferrara, around 1530. The painting then found its way into the hands of the French royal family, where records that indicate it was destroyed in the late seventeenth century.

The uncharacteristic ill treatment of a work by il divino Michelangelo seems to be due to the painting’s overt lasciviousness, which distinguishes it sharply from prior and posterior depictions of the myth. The downturned tail of the swan indicates clearly that the foul fowl is shown in mid-thrust, making the viewer a witness to the moment at which Leda is penetrated by her avian amante. This is perhaps more plainly visible in the superb print after the painting by Cornelis Bos.

(Cornelis Bos, after Michelangelo, Leda and the Swan, 1544-1566; engraving; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bos' version includes an egg and two infants. As a result of Leda's liaison with the swan she laid two eggs, out of which hatched two pairs of twins: Castor and Pollux, of the Gemini constellation; Clytemnestra, the eventual wife and murderer of Agamemnon; and Helen, of Trojan War fame. I urge you to visit the Met's site, which has recently upgraded its viewing technology, allowing works to be examined in extraordinary detail.) 

The unexpectedly literal visual interpretation of the age-old myth provoked me to ponder a question of great philosophical import: Would copulation between a male bird and a human female be possible? A survey of the internets revealed that the answer to my question was yes: Swans are one of the few species of birds whose males possess external sexual organs of comparable physiology to male humans. More commonly, birds mate by direct contact of orifices called cloacae, through which they also defecate (cloaca is Latin for sewer). Basically, instead of mammalian-style intercourse, the majority of birds just touch their butts together.

As it would for any ambitious philosopher, this discovery prompted further questions: Did Michelangelo know definitively that swans are one of the few birds that would be anatomically able to fornicate with a human female? And, if so, was this knowledge the raison d’être for such a graphic depiction of bird-on-bird action? We know that Michelangelo, like numerous other artists of his time, dissected humans in order to gain a better understanding of anatomy and physiology. Did he dissect birds as well? Perhaps the Casa Buonarotti would allow me access to their archives in order to investigate further.

(Published originally on November 22nd, 2011.)