Calligraphy Exhibit Sings About Sex

O my dove, thou art in the cleft of the rock, in the secret crevices of the cliff.” The words from Song of Songs, poetic as they are, could be interpreted any number of ways. But in artist Margaret Shepherd’s hands, that interpretation tilts in a certain direction. The gracefulness of the letters themselves, the sensuousness of the details, the flower seemingly on the verge of opening a little wider, all suggest that, whatever other meanings the passage may have, one meaning is right on the surface, and not to be ignored.

The piece is one of 45 examples of exquisite calligraphy in Song of Songs,” an exhibition of Shepherd’s on display in the Yale Divinity School’s Sarah Smith Gallery through April 21. 

The Song of Songs — one of two books in scripture that doesn’t mention God — has been interpreted in a wide variety of ways over the millennia. Commonly, clergy have approached it as an allegory for God’s love toward people, or for Jesus’s love toward the Church. Other interpretations understand it as being about love for the divine; still others suggest that it’s about the way human love can become divine in marriage.

A more literal reading, however — which has gained a lot more traction in modern times — suggests that the Song of Songs isn’t about divine love, or even love, exactly. It’s about sex, sex in all its delicious sensuality, suffused with enough detail to make even a contemporary reader blush. Shepherd’s work revels in this more earthly reading, and in doing so, emerges with a take on the Songs of Songs that enlivens the mind even as it quickens the pulse.

Shepherd’s show might strike some as overtly feminist, but as Shepherd points out in her accompanying book, that’s a feature from the text itself. Its main characters are two lovers who speak passionately to each other or rhapsodize about each other: a very young woman and a very young man of her town, probably a shepherd,” she writes. However, the young woman’s voice and her point of view dominate the scenes and events, an unusual perspective for an era when women had very little social or legal power. She describes her desires in striking detail, boldly pursues her lover, meets him for private trysts, and seizes the initiative in physical love. When she is hurt or disappointed, she pushes back.”

In Shepherd’s work, the effect of this is to make the woman and man in Song of Songs equal partners, united first and foremost in just how hot they are for each other. Yielding to a literal reading of the text allows a few other crucial details to emerge that make the Song of Songs feel at first glance startlingly contemporary, which is another way of saying that it suddenly seems timeless, in the way that accurate, careful portrayals of human beings from any point in history can be.

The lovers’ rhapsodic attention to one another’s bodies in Song of Songs is important in and of itself. In our era we worry (quite rightfully so) about objectification, and the dehumanization that follows. The lovers in Song of Songs don’t objectify each other, however; they celebrate each other. The sex is so good because the lovers revel in the details. Your naked feet are exquisite,” one lover says to another. Your graceful thighs are like fine jewelry, shaped by an artist’s hand. Your navel is a rounded goblet, ever filled with true intoxication; your waist is a silken sheaf of golden wheat, encircled by lilies. Your breasts are like little deer, like unto twin fawns of a gazelle.” It goes on and on. When one says to the other come, my love, let us go out into the fields; let us lie all night together among the flowering henna,” you can see how these two could easily spend the hours.

At the same time, Shepherd brings out that the Song of Songs has something to add about respect and responsibility. The young woman’s brothers, in Shepherd’s reading, worry about keeping her well. Our little sister is too young to wed,” they say. How can we protect our sister until she is safely married?” It’s a justified concern, but one that the woman herself is in a position to brush aside. I am fully of age, desireable and faithful,” she replies. Our household truly will be a dwelling place of peace.” She can make her own decisions, and follow her own desires for herself. 

This adds another layer to the lovers’ sheer attraction to one another: full consent. Truly decadent sex, in other words, is also safe, as the partners have defined it for themselves. 

It’s a message that seems utterly contemporary at the same time as it seems timeless. Women have suffered and continue to suffer sexism and misogyny throughout time and across the globe. But in the bedroom, a woman and her partner can be equals. Together they can make the power shifting between them their plaything, freely given and freely taken. And that’s not only right and just, but also very sexy. 

Song of Songs” runs for nearly another two months, so there’s still plenty of time to see it. Bring a date.

Song of Songs” can be visited at any time during normal operating hours, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday. Those without campus IDs are asked to inform the YDS Communications Office in advance and adhere to Yale’s COVID procedures.

Tags:

Sign up for our morning newsletter

Don't want to miss a single Independent article? Sign up for our daily email newsletter! Click here for more info.


Post a Comment

Commenting has closed for this entry

Comments

There were no comments