The Labyrinth of Desserts
by Chiang Yen-chou
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) painted his classical work
Bacchus in 1596, which may be taken as a tribute to his life of torturous lust. In this
painting, the god of wine is portrayed as a Japanese geisha-like, seductive youth holding
a glass of wine, crowned with clusters of grapes and gazes forward with drunken eyes. In
front of his bed is a basket of overripe fruits, contrasts with his shiny white skin.
It seems unimaginable to describe lust without food. The great Chinese philosopher
Confucius says: “Food and sex are foremost human desires.” The Venetian adventurer
and author, and the so-called world's greatest lover Giacomo Girolamo Casanova
（1725-1798）also writes: “I like tasty food as much as I love the aromatic scent
women.”1The sense of smell is initially connected with the hippocampus of human brain
and links to the original libido in the unconscious. In the world of nature, the prairie wolf
attracts his mate by spitting ruminated food and triggering the desire for mating with the
reeking smell of rotten food, while flowers seduce pollinating insects with nectar,
reproduction behavior and food habits seem to be interrelated to one another.
In Wang Liang-yin’s painting, melting desserts are symbols and rich metaphors
expressing emotional gestures. What lies behind visualized smell is a secret revelation of
mysterious relations between impulse and thought, which may evoke our memory of
insects sucking nectar, fly traps, as well as a mood of demure happiness.
I suppose everyone knows that desserts are made from fruits and spices of all
descriptions, including chocolate, vanilla, almond, lavender…etc. They not only arouse
erotic desires, but also satisfy people’s fantasy by offering the pleasure of swallowing.
The Iranian philosopher Avicenne states: “I have three treasure: spices, women and
prayer.” Which testifies how spices, like women, used to bring infinite happiness to
ancient prophets.
In my regard, Wang Liang-yin may share the happiness of Avicenne, but apparently
lacking his boldness and carelessness. The glittering allure of desserts fades away on her
canvas, appearing passive and impotent that tends to put the viewer in a state of
melancholy. It suddenly comes up to me that Nietzsche adopts a relatively more positive
stance toward the power of fascination and indulgence, as he considers the intoxication,
non-rationality, and even inhumanity of Dionysus as the origin of human civilization and
creative energy that break forth out of nature itself.
2
From my perspective, this
intoxication can also be identified and recognized as the soul of Wang Liang-yin’s art.
In the mean time, I cannot help wondering, if agony is the common state of soul,
moral is liable to leave the soul in sorrow. Under social surveillance, unleashed love
stimulates guilt and irrevocable sincerity brings anxiety. The French utopian
socialist and philosopher
Charles
Fourier
(1772-1872)
once
criticized
the
suppression of female desire from a socialist point of view: ”More than three thousand
years, our earth has been bloodily stained with unceasing rants, raves and nonsense, these
crimes should be ended and all the enigma of the desire should be resolved.”
3
Regrettably, the promulgation of capitalism in our age does not necessarily
guarantee the liberation of female desire. As real struggle occurs not in dark but
oftentimes under the sun, the family bonds at the expense of inner revolt inevitably
become the confinement of desire. As is the case that artist shows a tendency to reflect
their conscious and complex in their arts, Wang Liang-yin’s portrays father and brother
figure as sturdy male bodies that, for me, in one way resembles Zeus, the severe and
dignified king of the gods in Greek mythology, but in another, seems somewhat like a
compassionate prison guard.
As far as I know, what underlies sexuality is the fear of death, and in terms of
psychoanalytic theory, the analogue for castration anxiety, implying the fear of losing
power, which also reminds us of the phallus representing the realm of social power that
rejects to recognize marginal groups or abolish sexual repression. Therefore, in terms of
my interpretation, Wang Liang-yin’s works of melting desserts, projecting erotic desire
while signifying psychological breakdown at the same time. We see dripping colors and
floating smells merge in her work, bursting with energy of passion and pain.
In a materialistic psychological sense, asceticism provokes ritual behaviors, which
transform sexual desires into totem worship. From Indian Tantra to Christianity, libation
stands for the flow of body fluid and presentment of the transposed erotic desire. The
dazzling desserts defined and shaped by the dripping of paints, seem to resemble
sacrificial animals on the altar, still revealing something of the bloodstain.
What also inspires me is a quote from Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), he used to
describe “Lust as liquid flux. Human’s secret conceals in this abyss and exists in various
material forms.” 4In this stance, it is interesting to see how Wang Liang-yin conceals her
secrets in a variety of desserts, and finds her own way to slacken the pressure by melting
and dissolving the colors into fantasies.
As an English proverb goes: “Stressed is just desserts if you can reverse.” Wang
Liang-yin has transcribed the magic of words into the charm of images, expecting
viewers to decipher the riddle underlying her work.
1
5
Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt, Histoire de ma vie (Story of My Life).
Nietzsche's account of the Apollonian and the Dionysian is highly influenced by Arthue
Schopenhauer's analysis. See Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy: Out of
the Spirit of Music (Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik, 1872).
3
See François Marie Charles Fourier, Oeuvres complètes de Charles Fourier.
4
Sade shows a materialist point of view in several of his works, including The
Misfortunes of Virtue (Les Malheurs de la Vertu,1878).
5
“Stressed” spelled backwards is “desserts”.
2