Word: potiphars
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What relatively little color there is can be a delight, as the general tone of the exhibition is one of restraint. A popular technique of the period was trois cmyons, the use of black, red and white chalks. Black chalk and pastels were used in Head of Potiphar's Wife to create a drawing that anyone could mistake for a painting. Red and black chalk work their magic in Young Woman Holding a Cornucopia; the folds of her robe are so well defined, yet shadowed at the same time, that one must wonder whether the work is a drawing...
Rembrandt, for example, used the story of Potiphar's Wife to illustrate the insatiable nature of women's sexual desire, how women could become dangerous when deprived of sexual pleasure, and how society should therefore ensure that women are safely married away. And of course, the group of prints entitled "Eve Sets the Standard" portray woman's inherent vulnerability to evil and fatal powers of persuasion...
...Leviticus chapter includes a section on sex straightforwardly called "All About Getting Down." It solemnly notes, "It was a bad thing to do the wild thing without the blessing from the Almighty. You had to be hitched." And, in Genesis, Joseph rejects Potiphar's wife because he "couldn't betray a homeboy that way. Also, he couldn't jock the Almighty either, 'cuz it wouldn't be right sleeping with somebody else's ol' lady...
...head like a connoisseur quizzing a sculptor. Some of his key paintings, such as the Prado's extraordinary Atalanta and Hippomenes, in which he achieved a grand synthesis of Caravaggism and classical diction, are missing from Fort Worth. But it is quite clear from a work like Joseph and Potiphar's Wife that Reni could endow human figures with a Caravaggio-like density and passion while pointing the way for a classicism still to come. The figure of Joseph, moving away in its sandals and serene quadrant of ocher cloak, might be striding toward his eventual home...
Some brief characters also of note are Potiphar and his wife (can you say Zak Klobucher and Lesley Blumenthal) played with a hilarious level of aristocracy, and the bopping Elvis imitation of Pharoah, played by director Ty Warren. There are few folks around direct a great show and do a good Elvis...