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Arts & Communication The riddle of the sphinx revisited

When Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres painted his standpoint, the Anthropocene began with the Industrial
neoclassical version of the encounter in 1827, he remained Revolution and accelerated rapidly during the Great
loyal to the traditional format. Oedipus is still portrayed as Acceleration following the Second World War. Morally,
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the cool and intelligent solver of riddles. However, just a however, the Anthropocene has yet to begin. For eco-
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few decades later, Symbolist painters began transforming activists, such as Arrhenius’ descendant Greta Thunberg,
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this age-old icon of intellectual clarity into an experimental and climate scientists, this gap has led to increasing
playground for exploring mystery, decadence, and concern, anxiety, and an increasingly urgent call for
even dark eroticism. Caresses belongs to this series of radical, revolutionary action. 8
experiments. The exact contemporaneity of Caresses and Arrhenius’
The overall aim of this paper is to reread the painting as article is coincidental in several important ways. However,
an icon of our current Anthropocene condition, grounding once the Anthropocene condition is introduced into
this interpretation in events that were contemporaneous the interpretation of Caresses, its meaning is affected by
with Caresses. In the first section, I link Khnopff’s painting this temporal overlap. The painting can be viewed as an
to the first scientific description of anthropogenic global expression of the alienating tension between the physical
warming in an 1896 article by Svante Arrhenius, which is Anthropocene (the damaged planet, with a red and dry
also one of the earliest embodiments of the gap between Earth) and the moral Anthropocene (the ruinous and
the physical Anthropocene and the lack of a moral illegible remnants of cultures, symbolizing the lack of a
response to it. The following three sections discuss three proper moral response to the condition). Amidst this,
sources of that gap. In Section 2, I interpret Oedipus’ Oedipus seems passive. He appears indifferent to the fact
staff as a cyborg element in the myth and link it to the that a strange and impressive creature is embracing him.
first Belgian automobile convention in 1896. In Section The creature, though benign at this point, is mesmerizing.
3, I discuss Freud’s Oedipus complex, first described in Yet, its powerful paws are dangerously close to Oedipus’
1897, as an example of modern Western individualism vulnerable parts.
that impedes our willingness and even ability to embrace Yet, it is hard to define Oedipus’ gaze. Is it really one
multi-species intelligence. In Section 4, I link Khnopff’s of ease and coziness? Or is he paralyzed with fear? This
allegiance to Joséphin Péladan’s Symbolist theories simultaneous feeling of intimacy and anxiety, combined
and art salons (1892 – 1896) as an example of modern with the striking detail that this particular sphinx has the
Western esotericism, which, despite presenting itself as an body of a panther rather than the traditional lion, has been
alternative to mainstream thinking, failed to offer a radical interpreted as a reference to a story by the French novelist
alternative to inspire an ecological morality. In Section 5, I Honoré de Balzac: A Passion in the Desert (1830). In the
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reread Caresses as a source of inspiration for Anthropocene story, a soldier from Napoleon Bonaparte’s army, isolated
morality, based on our fundamental relationality – our from his battalion in the Egyptian desert, stumbles on an
“caresses” – expressed through three alternative non- oasis. There, he discovers that he shares the oasis with a
Freudian Oedipus complexes. female panther, expecting to be devoured by it at any

2. The Anthropocene and its moral absence moment. However, to his surprise, the panther adopts him
as her companion, and the intimate relation that develops
In 1896, when Khnopff painted Caresses, the Swedish between them is described in terms of a romance. The
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scientist Arrhenius published the first scientific following passages illustrate how the imagery and title of
description of global warming as a result of burning Caresses echo the themes of this story:
fossil fuels. However, Arrhenius was not concerned by
his findings. He did not mind if his cold Scandinavian [The soldier] looked at her caressingly, staring into her
homeland warmed up a little, and he expected global eyes to magnetize her …; then with a movement both
warming to lead to an overall rise in welfare for all. In his gentle and amorous, as though he wanted to caress the most
attitude, we can discern the beginning of a gap between beautiful woman, he passed his hand over her whole body,
the physical Anthropocene, as described by the natural from the head to the tail, scratching the flexible vertebrae
10(p9, italics added)
sciences, and what I call a moral Anthropocene, a proper which divided the panther’s yellow back.
human response to the predicament. “The man, understanding the importance of his caresses,…
The term Anthropocene refers to the current age (cene) was bold enough to play with her ears; he caressed her belly
in which the effects of human (anthropos) activity have and scratched her head as hard as he could.” 10(p20, italics added)
become sufficiently significant to act as a force of nature, “‘Ah, Cutie Pie’ cried the soldier, caressing her
disrupting the Earth’s ecological systems. From a physical enthusiastically; ‘we’re bound together for life and
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Volume 3 Issue 3 (2025) 3 doi: 10.36922/ac.5868