Stripped of Her Power: Sebastiano Ricci’s Susanna and the Elders
BY JANE C. CUSTER
Susanna and the Elders is a story laced with lust, lies, and vindication. Susanna was a
beautiful, virtuous Jewish woman married to a wealthy and respected man named Joachim.
While Susanna was bathing in the privacy of her husband’s garden, two Jewish elders spied
her. These powerful men harassed Susanna, threatening to accuse her of adultery by saying that
they witnessed her having a tryst with a young man unless she would have sex with both of
them. In Susanna’s world, adultery was a crime punishable by death. However, Susanna
remained faithful to her husband, acting as a pillar of strength and virtue even as she faced
threatened public humiliation and the possibility of death. The Elders, following through with
their threats, accused her of being an adulteress. The judges believed the lies of Susanna’s
accusers, and so she was sentenced to death. Luckily, young Daniel appeared on the scene.
Acting as judge, Daniel interrogated the elders, caught them in their lie, and sentenced them to
execution by stoning.1 This outcome vindicated Susanna and restored her reputation. Susanna
became an Old Testament heroine because of her virtue, fearlessness, and strength of character.
Susanna lost her image as a heroine during the Renaissance and Enlightenment thanks
to the many artists who represented her as a victim; weak and compliant, she does not fight
back. These artists stripped Susanna of her identity as an Old Testament heroine and placed her
Bruce M. Metzger, “Susanna and the Elders,” Jewish Virtual Library, (accessed November 16, 2013),
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0019_0_19381.html.
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in the role of the subservient, sexually available female. As a result, Susanna became the target
of unbridled male lust and a victim of voyeurism.
In Susannah and the Elders (1713), Sebastiano Ricci forces Susanna’s body into unnatural
contortions, positioning her as a victim (figure 1). As we shall see, this representation reveals
Ricci’s misogynistic tendencies and his cavalier attitude toward women as benign objects of
male desire. Such representations have had a negative impact in the larger context of art history
and society.
Interestingly, Artemesia Gentileschi’s representation of Susanna and the Elders (1610) is
an exception. In Gentileschi’s representation, Susanna uses her arms to push the Elders away as
she turns her face from them in horror (figure 2). Her posture and facial expression indicate her
absolute protest against their advances as well as her determination to escape the situation.
Gentileschi is known for her unique paintings in which strong women, often Biblical heroines,
take action against their enemies rather than responding passively. Like Susanna, Gentileschi
was the victim of sexual assault. Art historians, such as Mary D. Garrard, theorize that
Gentileschi’s unique representations of women in her artwork reflect her experiences as a victim
of multiple rapes who then suffered the rape’s subsequent stigmatization not only in her
lifetime but also in art historians’ memory of her.2 Similarly, Sebastiano Ricci’s experiences and
attitudes manifest themselves in his work.
Mary D. Garrard, “Artemisia and Susanna,” in Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany, edited by
2
Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 147-71.
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Sebastiano Ricci’s Susanna and the Elders is a richly colored oil painting on canvas. In the
central foreground is the composition’s focal point, Susanna, represented as a nude woman. She
occupies the bottom corner of an upside-down triangle that she shares with male figures
occupying the top two corners of the triangle. These two men, the Elders, are standing and
leaning above Susanna, who cowers below them. All of the composition’s other elements,
including the viewer, are arranged in radial symmetry around the painting’s focal point.
The predominant element in this triadic composition is color. The painting has a warm
temperature due to Ricci’s liberal use of rich red and yellow hues along with his limited use of
muted blue hues. This composition’s warm yellows, saffron, and deep reds, appearing in the
male figure’s clothing and Susanna’s drape, lend balance to the luminous flesh tones of her
body. Susanna’s luminous torso and legs contrast sharply with the rich hues and dark tones of
the men’s robes and shadowy architectural elements that surround her while also creating
enclosure within the central grouping. Dark blue, used minimally in clothing in the
foreground, provides cool contrast to warm hues. Ricci used a lighter, brighter blue in the sky
appearing in the distant background. Heavy gray clouds move into the clear blue sky beneath
wispy white clouds, giving the composition great depth. The active blue sky recedes in contrast
to the architectural elements in the foreground, midground, and background, which are painted
in white and shades of gray. Rising above the white-gray walls, cedar trees, painted in a lowintensity green hue, pierce the sky. The high-intensity off-white walls in the background push
the colorful central group forward which refocuses attention on the composition’s front and
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center. In this way, Ricci used forms and colors to create enclosure that pulls viewers’ eyes to
Susanna, the composition’s focus.
Ricci uses line and shape to establish conflicts occurring in the composition. For
example, in the midground and background, straight, evenly-weighted lines establish the
solidity of the stone pillars and the wall enclosing Susanna with the predatory men. In the
foreground, the straight, heavy lines of the bath abut the soft, curvilinear lines of Susanna’s
body. The human figures in the foreground are formed with flowing contour lines. The male
figures have a realistic appearance. In contrast, Susanna’s figure falls into an extreme
contrapposto pose that is not realistic, though it effectively emphasizes her curvaceous figure.
Curvilinear shapes also create balance and tension. For instance, on the left side, a statue and
two pillars bring balance to one man’s extended arm, his flowing robe, the fountain, and
Susanna’s drape on the right side. Additionally, the three central figures are composed of
separate shapes abutting and overlapping one another. This interaction of shapes emphasizes
the men’s invasive intentions.
The artist established psychic lines as an essential part of the action in the painting. First,
psychic lines are formed by the two men looking directly at Susanna’s face. The kneeling man
gestures to himself with one hand as he clutches Susanna’s collar bone with his other hand. The
standing man points to the left, while his other finger points upward, as if to silence her.
Susanna looks at the standing man with a fearful expression on her upturned face.
Sebastiano Ricci uses chiaroscuro to effectively convey emotions. Around the Elders,
dark hues create shadows emphasizing the Elders’ negative intentions. In contrast, light,
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saturated flesh tones washing over Susanna emphasize her gentle nature and suggest her
innocence. The shadowy architectural elements increase the painting’s dramatic mood. In fact,
the men appear to have emerged from the shadows, their presence casting shadows over
Susanna. Contrasting dark and light values in the clothing of the central figures create texture
while increasing the scene’s drama. The light gray values of the garden wall, the pale blue sky,
and the sunlight of the background contrast against the shadowy midground, creating depth in
the painting.
The composition’s various gray-toned architectural elements in the foreground,
midground, and background may have a subtle appearance, but they play a big role in the
painting’s symbolism and iconography, setting the stage for the action in the painting’s central
grouping. Iconography plays an important role in religious paintings, so it is another important
factor to consider.
Determining the painting’s iconographic origins is easy in this case. The classical
architectural elements are typical of the late Baroque period in which the work was painted;
they also point to the Classical realm of iconography. Furthermore, as an Italian man, it is likely
that Ricci would have been inclined to apply Classical Greco-Roman along with some Christian
iconography.
Beginning in the background, cedar trees––icons of the Holy Land––are rising above the
garden walls, which are symbolic of man’s domination over nature. More importantly, the walls
are also an indication of Susanna’s domesticity. Throughout art history, walls have been used to
define women’s place in the world; most often, they are depicted within the walls of a garden or
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a home, the place where respectable women were expected to stay. The tightly closed door in
the wall suggests Susanna’s isolation and also her entrapment. Although the setting is a garden,
no plants are growing within its walls, suggesting that Susanna’s “garden” (her womb) is
barren.
The satyr sculpture, standing at midground, is a symbol of virility and unrestrained
sexuality. The two columns standing directly behind the two men are phallic symbols. The
fountain, located close to Susanna on her left, and the bath, in which her left leg dangles, are
sometimes viewed as symbols of purity. However, these water elements are also symbols of
female sexuality, originating with ancient Greco-Roman images of Aphrodite (Venus) depicting
her with a bathing pitcher if not with a larger body of water.
The Elders are dressed in richly colored robes which indicate their power. In contrast,
Susanna is powerless and vulnerable due to her nudity. Although her scant drape is richly
colored, Ricci applied a muted, rosy red rather than using the same regal red he used in the
garments of the Elders. The softer, rosy red of Susanna’s drape suggests her femininity. The
composition’s iconography and symbolism work together to emphasize the polarity between
the sexes, pointing to male domination and female submission. Ricci reinforces the theme by
applying dark tones to create shadows which are cast by the satyr and columns and falling over
the feminine elements. All of this sets the mood for the action of the figures in the foreground.
Many elements communicate that the woman is being sexually intimidated by the men.
The two clothed men are hovering over a nude woman. Their stances, gestures, and facial
expressions indicate the aggression of the men and the intimidation of the woman. The men’s
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bodies are cast in shadows that seem to creep around Susanna’s pale figure from behind. She
looks up into the face of the standing Elder with her mouth hanging open. His right index
finger points toward his lips, as he gestures for her silence while his left index finger points
towards the scene’s left. She shrinks away from the men, which causes her naked body to fall
into the exaggerated contrapposto, with her right hand attempting to cover her breasts while
her other hand pulls her red drape over her lower torso. In this way, Ricci represents Susanna
as a seductive sex goddess by placing her in the Venus Pudica pose: that is, contrapposto with
hands attempting to cover, while also drawing attention to, the breasts and genitals.
Focusing on Susanna provides much information for a feminist analysis that will help us
determine Ricci’s attitude toward women. Susanna’s position at the bottom of the triangle
formed by the placement of the three figures reminds viewers that she is an Other––a woman
and a Jewish person. Her identification as an Other tells the eighteenth-century English
audience that she is subordinate to the men and the viewer.3 Additionally, although Susanna’s
character is virtuous and heroic, nothing in Ricci’s representation indicates this to the viewer.
As feminist art historians Griselda Pollock and Rozsika Parker describe, “Women caught in
moments of penitential contemplation or private suffering, in acts of heroism or courage, are
shown to the viewer for the enjoyment of the sight of the woman and not for the psychological
or dramatic impact of the events.”4
Such post-colonial theory also applies to feminist theory. According to Albert Boime, figures placed at the
bottom of the triangle “have been consigned to the bottom of the social, as well as the visual, pyramid.” Albert
Boime, “Triangular Trade and Triangular Compositions,” The Art of Exclusion: Representing Blacks in the Nineteenth
Century (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990), 17.
4Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock, Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology (New York: Pantheon Books,
1981), 27.
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Next, Susanna’s physical features must be considered. Her luminous body strongly
contrasts with her shadowy surroundings. Her softly rendered, golden hair falls away from her
upturned face, suggesting surprise and fear, but her parted lips are passionate and compliant,
suggesting that she might be a willing participant. At her neck, her musculature indicates she is
gasping in fear, but the rings of Venus on her neck remind us not only of Susanna’s ideal
classical beauty but also of her identification with Venus. Although her arms appear toned and
strong, she uses them only in a meek attempt to cover herself, rather than to fight for herself.
Although her twisted torso emphasizes her struggle and shows her vulnerability, it also
puts Susanna in a very precarious position. As her torso twists to face the viewer, she kneels
and sits back on her right leg while her left leg falls down toward the left and into the bath. She
is unable to stand or run from this position. In this position, Susanna’s legs are forced apart.
With her drape barely covering her upper inner thighs, Ricci comes very close to exposing
Susanna to viewers. This is no accident! Ricci carefully arranged Susanna and the surrounding
elements to draw attention to her, boldly teasing his audience with her struggling body.
In Ricci’s Susanna and the Elders, it is important to consider the viewer because Ricci
made the viewer a part of the composition. This representation of Susanna would have
appealed to Ricci’s audience––white, heterosexual men of high social standing––because it
reinforced their deeply entrenched patriarchal values. It was in their best interests economically
and socially to keep women in society’s subordinate roles, and so they would approve of
Susanna’s representation as an object intended for the gaze of the viewer and nothing more. In
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fact, the eighteenth-century male viewer would identify with the Elders (the villains) rather
than Susanna (the heroine), according to feminist art historian Mary D. Garrard.5
To bring the viewer into the composition, Ricci used foreshortening when painting the
bath, also leaving an open space in the extreme foreground. This places the viewer in the bath
standing directly in front of Susanna, and assures that the audience has a full view of Susanna.
In this way, Ricci forces viewers to join in the Elders’ voyeurism. In fact, the Elders assist the
viewer by distracting Susanna with their advances in order to give the viewer “undisturbed,
voyeuristic enjoyment of the female form” and presenting “woman as object to a male
viewer/possessor outside the painting.”6 Ricci’s painting offers no moral message. In effect, it is
an example of eighteenth-century erotica, designed for the excitement and pleasure of male
viewers.
Some may suggest that Ricci was not a misogynist, but an ordinary man who was
simply a product of his time. It is true that Ricci’s chauvinism was standard practice in his
lifetime. According to Parker and Pollock, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries, women in the arts were being excluded from places of art education and exhibition in
increasing numbers. In fact, although a few women were originally admitted to the Paris
Académi, the institution barred them in 1706.7 No doubt such measures reflected the negative
attitudes toward women at all levels of patriarchal society and also validated Ricci’s personal
misogynistic tendencies. However chauvinistic society was in the seventeenth and eighteenth
Garrard, 153.
5
Parker and Pollock, 116.
Parker and Pollock, 27.
6
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centuries, Ricci’s life choices, described in the following short biography, prove that his
misogyny was exceptional.
Sebastiano Ricci, an artist of the Venetian School, is best known for his fresco paintings.
Ricci’s biographers give similar accounts of his life and his problems. He was born and baptized
in Belluno, Italy, in 1659. At age fifteen, he relocated to Venice to receive artistic inspiration and
training. According to Jeffrey Daniels, in 1681 Ricci’s stay in Venice was cut short by
unspecified legal problems.8 Francesca Baldassari describes those legal problems in detail. She
writes that around 1678-1680, “Ricci made two women pregnant and had attempted to poison
the younger.”9 He was arrested for attempted murder, for which he faced punishment by
death. Ricci was rescued by an unidentified noble patron and immediately moved to Bologna in
order to escape the Venetian magistrate’s jurisdiction.10
Records indicate that Ricci’s young poisoning victim was eventually brought to Bologna
where he married her.11 This was a typical eighteenth-century solution for legitimizing
pregnancy. Two of Ricci’s biographers explain that Ricci’s misconduct toward women did not
stop there. According to Jeffrey Daniels, Ricci was visiting Parma with his wife when he was
imprisoned due to “yet another escapade involving a female.”12 The Duke of Parma bailed him
out this time, in exchange for artwork.
Jeffery Daniels, Sebastiano Ricci (Sussex, UK: Wayland Publishers, 1976), ix.
8
Francesca Baldassari, The Victory of David over Goliath: The Discovery of a Masterpiece by Sebastiano Ricci
(Firenze: Centro Di for Moretti Fine Art Ltd., 2013), 23.
10Daniels, ix.
11Daniels, x.
12Daniels, x.
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Soon after that incident, Ricci returned to Bologna with his wife and child but, forgetting
about them once again, he eloped to Turin with the young daughter of landscape painter
Peruzzini. Thanks to Peruzzini’s family connections in Turin, Ricci was “denounced, arrested,
and sentenced to death for abduction and bigamy.” The Duke of Parma intervened again and
Ricci’s punishment was commuted to “eternal banishment from Turin.”13
Instead of returning to Bologna, Ricci spent the next fifteen years in exile, traveling
throughout Italy and much of Europe, painting and observing artwork along the way while also
gaining fame and fortune via his European admirers. His exile from Italy ended when certain
authorities died. In 1718, Sebastiano Ricci returned to Italy as a rich and successful artist. He
died in Venice in 1734, leaving behind an extensive catalog of work––and a record of sexual
conquests including convictions of abduction, bigamy, and attempted murder.
Sebastiano Ricci’s version of Susanna and the Elders represents Susanna as nothing more
than a sex object. Ricci’s biographical analysis offers enough evidence regarding his destructive
behavior toward multiple women to prove that Ricci was a misogynist of the worst kind. His
representation of Susanna is a reflection of his misogynistic tendencies and his cavalier attitude
toward women as benign objects of male desire.
Parker and Pollock’s description of the woman in art whose appearance is “passive,
available, possessable, and powerless,” signifying man’s position of dominance in the world,
could apply easily to Ricci’s Susanna; in this way, Ricci is a “user of the language of his
Baldassari, 23.
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culture.”14 Because Susanna represented every woman to Ricci, he was compelled to represent
her as a seductress in order to justify his own behavior toward women, thereby transferring the
blame for his lecherous behavior to all women. Therefore, he stripped Susanna of her identity as
a heroine, put her on display as a woman of questionable virtue, and invited other men to join
him in objectifying her. Ricci used his art to justify his misogyny while also celebrating the
power of all men in a patriarchal society.
The varied biographical accounts of Ricci’s life reflect chauvinistic attitudes still existing
within the community of art historians. For instance, one biography, appearing in a catalog,
presents Ricci as having traveled extensively due to his adventurous nature.15 This glosses over
the fact that Sebastiano Ricci was on the run from an attempted murder conviction. Another
biography describes Ricci as a man who was “highly sexed” and “impetuous.”16 Still another
describes him as being driven by his “unbridled sensuality.”17 In an English exhibition catalog
of Ricci’s work, an art historian glibly writes about Susanna and the Elders as depicting
“Susanna’s unfortunate experience,” then refers to Ricci as having the “unimpeachable” ability
to depict the subject due to his escapades which “almost lost him his head.”18
It is a sad fact that throughout art history Susanna’s “No!” is ignored. She did not
consent, but artists and art historians in a patriarchal society discount the woman’s opinion and
take away her power. Susanna, who was on her way to being raped, stopped the act through
Parker and Pollock, 116.
Jeffrey Daniels and Terence Mullaly, in Works by Sebastiano Ricci from British Collections (London: P & D
Colnaghi & Co. Ltd.), 16.
14
15
Daniels, xvi.
Daniels and Mullaly, 20.
18Daniels and Mullaly, [16].
16
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her resistance. She defended her own virtue by heroically standing up for herself; however, that
is not the focus of Susanna’s representations. By placing Susanna in the role of sex object, and
by glorifying the Elders, the act of rape is glorified. This is perpetuated by art historians who
default to comfortably familiar patriarchal interpretations. Because the rape and abduction of
women has been a common theme in Judeo-Christian and Classical literature, there are many
other works of art that glorify rape, such as the Rape of the Sabines, the Abduction of Europa,
and the Rape of Persephone.
Unfortunately, patriarchal messages are firmly implanted in art, due to the longevity of
art itself. Artists and art historians often unknowingly perpetuate these messages. “Art is not a
mirror,” as Parker and Pollock explain. “It mediates and re-presents social relations in a schema
of signs which require a receptive and preconditioned reader in order to be meaningful. And it
is at that level of what those signs connote, even unconsciously, that patriarchal ideology is
reproduced.”19
In this way, the personal misogyny of Sebastiano Ricci and others will continue to seep
into the art world. From artistic representations, patriarchal ideologies spread and continue to
influence thinking in our society. As long as victimized women are still blamed for rape and
other forms of violence, it will be necessary for feminist art historians to continue to battle
patriarchal ideologies conveyed by art.
Parker and Pollock, 119.
19
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(fig.1) Sebastiano Ricci, Susanna and the Elders, 1713, Oil on canvas.
Available from Wikimedia Commons.
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(fig. 2) Artemesia Gentileschi, Susanna and the Elders, 1610, Oil on canvas.
Available from Wikimedia Commons.
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