Notes

‘The mistreatment of women is explored in Nastagio degli Onesti and the Difficult Decision (1992). This is a narrative triptych that questions the roles women are often forced to assume in society. Renaissance allusions are present in the title, and visually in coloured background sequences taken from narrative panels by Botticelli. The panels show a knight and his dogs pursuing a young woman through a forest, catching her and cutting out her heart. They were violent cautionary tales to
recalcitrant women and were made for a wedding chamber, thus suggesting that they would function as a means of psychological control over the new wife. The rottweiler nestling his head on the woman’s lap suggests control over women, the dog symbolising the man courting her who is only momentarily passive. His strength, and the imminent danger of his wrath, are attested to by the Rottweilers attacking the woman in the panel behind. Whenever dogs are used in conjunction with women the inference is of woman as ‘bitch’; here one presumes the woman being courted will become the ‘bitch’ of the forceful man with a bandaged, truncated arm. His red military shoulder insignia not only connects him visually to the knight in a red cloak but also refers to the violence of military professions in which ‘protectors’ of the patriarchal state are, by inference, destroyers of women. The dogs in each panel derive from Victor’s work for the local vet – the central dog being, quite literally, a dog anaesthetised and laid out for castration. The third panel appears to be a quasi-religious annunciation scene, complete with St Joseph’s Lily denoting purity, and a clearly noncompliant pregnant woman, contrasting with the serenely acquiescent Virgin Mary in Western iconography. The cross section of her belly shows a little dog curled up, in reference to her expected role as submissive nurturer.’¹

^1. Karen von Veh (2008) ‘Gothic Visions: Violence, Religion and Catharsis in Diane Victor’s Drawings’, in Bronwyn Law-Viljoen (ed) Diane Victor, TAXI BOOK: 013, Johannesburg: David Krut, page 68.

Provenance

Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, 1992.

Private Collection.

Exhibited

Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Diane Victor Solo Exhibition, 1992.

Spier Arts Trust, Stellenbosch, Art Exhibition and Book Launch of PRINT, DRAWINGS, SMOKE, 18 February to 18 April 2023.

Literature

Herlo Van Rensberg (1995) ‘An interview with Diane Victor’, Sabinet African Journals, 1995(5): page 29, accessed: https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/ AJA10201497_148, 22 February 2023, with the title ‘Nastagio, Degli Onesti, and Other Difficult Decisions’.

Elizabeth Rankin and Karen von Veh (2008) Diane Victor, Johannesburg: David Krut, illustrated on pages 72 and 73.