Thomas Hart Benton's "The Rape of Persephone" is part of the permanent collection of The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. At almost six feet high, the painting leaves you breathless and the museum has kindly placed a bench in front of it so you can sit and simply weep. A gentleman by the name of Raymond T. Starzmann at the museum bookstore recommended the book Thomas Hart Benton - An American Original, written by his friend Henry Adams. It has the personal insights of a biography and a very thorough presentation of Benton's works in beautiful plates.The following quotation from the book makes me laugh, especially with Persephone in view. I do not think his model would have felt ridiculed..
""He was more comfortable with men than with women. "Women are extremely touchy about being regarded as old-fashioned or out-moded," he noted. They were inclined to feel that he intended ridicule when he asked to sketch them. With men it was different: "Male vanity soars above all the conditions of correctness in dress or manner. The man, like the barnyard rooster, is well satisfied with himself whether he is on a dunghill or in a modern coop. He may see plainly that he is no roaring success, but he puts the blame for that on circumstances...As a consequence of this, men are easier to draw." "
The rooster crows but the hen delivers?
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