All texts copyright Richard Shillitoe
susanna and the elders
1929
Oil on canvas.
30 x 21in. (76.2 x 53.3cm.)
Signed ‘Colquhoun’ upper right.
Provenance
The Simon Carter Gallery, Woodbridge, Suffolk, late 1970s.
Sotheby’s, 14 March 1979, lot 88.
Exhibited
London, New Burlington Galleries, 1932.
Woodbridge, Simon Carter Gallery, 1970s.
London, Parkin Gallery, 1977, no. 2.
The painting depicts an episode from the Biblical Book of Daniel in
which two elders hatch a plot to confront and seduce Susanna whilst she is bathing by threatening to
accuse her of adultery.
Susanna stands in a stream, naked and at ease. She makes no attempt to conceal her nakedness. The
elders, in modern clothing, loll on the stream bank watching her. In the back-ground, a powerful waterfall
issues from a cave.
Susanna stands next to the tall stump of a tree. A small rock, resembling a miniature menhir, is set in the
earth immediately adjacent to one of the elders. No artist in the twentieth century could paint a naked
woman next to a standing tree trunk without being ware of phallic associations. Nor could the presence of
a phallic-shaped rock within easy stroking reach of the elder’s right hand be an accident.
The lopped tree trunk is an early example of this favourite image of emasculation. It appears again in later
works such as Gouffres Amers (1939) and The Pine Family (1940). The masturbatory allusion is another
reference to male sexual inadequacy.
The cave and waterfall, both traditional symbols of woman’s natural powers, reinforce the sexually
charged nature of the composition.
The church that lies beyond the viaduct is remote and unreachable. Its isolation emphasises its irrelevance
to the drama being played out in the foreground.
The subject of Susanna bathing was a popular subject for artists who generally accentuated the erotic and
voyeuristic aspect of Susanna’s plight as she attempted to conceal her nakedness. Colquhoun’s Susanna,
however, shows no shame, defensiveness, or modesty. This is an assertive, confident woman who does not
accept the dominance of men. Here it is the men who are vulnerable, surrounded by emblems of their
impotence and inadequacy.
An ink study is with the NT.