PAINTINGS > Disgracers Series

This painting is based on Tantalus in Hades whose punishment is like modern women's goals that move out of reach.
Disgracer 3 (After Goltzius) Tantalus: We Sacrifice our Children and Still the Glass Ceiling
oil and ink on canvas
34" x 60"
2014

Tantalus offered his own son as a sacrifice to the gods. At first welcomed by them, he was later thrown out of Olympus. His punishment in Hades was to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches, with the fruit ever eluding his grasp, and the water always receding before he could take a drink. His name is associated with a situation of temptation without satisfaction (the source of the English word "tantalize.")
In my painting, I think of the many women who have had to choose between their families and their careers, often offering their children to "the gods," only to be punished as their goal stays just beyond their grasp -- the "glass ceiling."