You may ask what's the famous philosopher and wise old man of antiquity doing on all fours, playing horsy with Phyllis, a young maiden. Believe it or not, this was a popular theme originated at the end of the Middle Ages, part of a series known as the "Power of Women", found in literature as well as other visual arts.

This image recounts the late medieval legend that Aristotle tried to teach his protege Alexander about the dangers of love, only to fall prey to this humiliation himself. A fierce defender of the male superiority, praised for his indifference to beautiful women, the philosopher assured that womanhood was similar to a symbol of passivity, weakness and frivolity.

This image, however, shows Aristotle in the privacy of his garden, being exposed to the looks of the curious while he submits to his Mistress that makes him a horse-man. Phyllis muses over the pleasure of riding a horse so full of logic, dialectic and philosophy, now reduced to a harnessed old fool who carries her about the courtyard.

According to some sources, "Phyllis" is a misattribution. The woman is actually Campaspe, a mistress of Alexander, to whom Aristotle lost a bet that she couldn't seduce him. Seems Aristotle had been counseling Alexander that he should resist her, and Alexander's response was "I bet you couldn't."

HANS BALDUNG GRIEN

(b. 1484/85, Schwäbisch-Gmünd, d. 1545, Strasbourg)

German painter and graphic artist. He probably trained with Dürer in Nuremberg, but his brilliant color, expressive use of distortion, and taste for the gruesome bring him closer in spirit to his other great German contemporary, Grünewald.

His output was varied and extensive, including religious works, allegories and mythologies, portraits, designs for stained glass His most characteristic paintings, however, are fairly small in scale--erotic allegories such as Death and the Maiden, a subject he treated several times. Eroticism is often strongly present in his engravings, the best known of which is The Bewitched Stable Boy (1544), which has been interpreted as an allegory of lust.