bathsheba

“The letter, what violence! How it seeks us out, how it aims at us! Us. Especially women.”

Figure 1. Bathsheba at her bath by Rembrandt van Rijn (1654) ARTSTOR

Referencing the biblical story of Bathsheba and David—in which King David saw Bathsheba bathing; implemented the killing of her husband, and bid her to marry him—Rembrandt’s painting depicts ‘Bathsheba at her bath’, having received the letter from David summoning her to his palace. Cixous explores this painting in her text ‘Bathsheba or the interior Bible’ (a study in ‘Stigmata’, 1998), identifying six key concepts throughout: the nude, the presence of David, the body as light, the thoughtful body, the letter, and Bathsheba as the ox, exemplified by the exclamation “The letter, what violence! How it seeks us out, how it aims at us! Us. Especially women.” (Cixous, 1998, pg. 9). The first part of the quote, “The letter, what violence!”, refers to the violence of David. Whilst not visually present, David is depicted as both the darkness surrounding Bathsheba—who is oppositely portrayed as the light: “if there is a couple [...] indeed it would be day and night” (pg. 3)—and the letter, which further evokes the violence and disruption of his command over Bathsheba, ultimately resulting in her becoming pregnant. Cixous then goes on to emphasise how violence seeks ‘us’ out, “especially women”. Practising the philosophy of ‘feminine writing’, Cixous asserts her body and thoughts into the text, often referring to Bathsheba as the collective ‘we’; the ownership of her body coming to symbolise that endured by many women. When comparing Bathsheba to the still life of the slaughtered ox, painted by Rembrandt in 1655—just as Bathsheba is ‘the day’, the ox is ‘the lamp’ (pg. 14)—for example, Cixous states that the ox is ultimately “what we become under the ax and the slicer” (pg. 14). For Bathsheba this is the objectification of her body imposed by David, the letter’s violence comparable to that inflicted by the axe. Despite this, Cixous observes that Rembrandt’s Bathsheba was not painted for this purpose of objectification, “she is not made—not painted—to be seen nude” (pg. 3). The painting goes beyond her body and into her thought: “Bathsheba does not look at her body. She is not before herself. She is not here. She is gone behind her eyelids.” (pg. 7). It is the letter that has transported her, pouring into ‘her organs’ and into ‘her brain’. This again harks back to the all encompassing violence perpetuated by David.

Bibliography

Hélène Cixous "Bathsheba or the Interior Bible" in Stigmata: Escaping Texts (Routledge Classics, 2005), pp. 3-15

Back to Abstracts