ABSTRACT
In his provocative discussion of this well-known painting, David Lubin takes issue with the premise that Vanderlyn’s conventional image of the classicized female nude exists in a privileged space of universal—and therefore apolitical—meaning. As a representation of an eroticized female body positioned in the domain of nature, Ariadne can be identified with a familiar archetype in European painting. But, as Lubin argues, this association does not preclude readings of the work in terms of issues relevant to its specifically American social and historical context.
Lubin links the subject of the painting to personifications of the American republic as an Indian princess and, later, a classical goddess, and to the revival in America of melodrama as a popular art form. He then suggests a possible understanding of the legend of Pocahontas as an American variant of the Ariadne myth, with its attendant themes of seduction and abandonment. Lubin argues for the existence of a powerful political subtext generated by unacknowledged guilt and anxiety over the betrayal, and subsequent degradation, of Native American peoples in the interest of nation-building.
