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119 If the enigma of the first allegory was unlocked by means of an anagogy and the mysteries of the second were revealed thanks to connotation and typology , the third allegory is organized by the rules of a threefold antithesis. It is an antithesis that vertically splits the painting into two opposing halves. The first contrast we notice is that between the possibility of touching (suggested by the naked and exposed bodies of Aphrodite and Eros on the right part of the painting) and the lack—one could even say the prohibition—of touch indicated by the pile of body armors and armory that dominates the left part of Brueghel’s painting. The soft, ruddy flesh of Aphrodite’s body invites touch—an invitation already fulfilled in her embracing and kissing of the young Eros. In sheer opposition to this scene, the coldness and stiffness of the iron armor plates, next to it, obliterate even the slightest possibility of touching . It is not an accident that Brueghel inscribes these two contraries within the sphere of two equally contradictory worlds: on the one hand the world of War, and on the other that of Love. War demands physical strength, production, and a reserve of expendable “matter” (in both forms of commodity and manpower)—all of these are repALLEGORY 3 120 resented on the left side of the painting, by the labor of the men who work the iron on the anvil to produce more armor, in spite of what already lies in waste in the forefront of the painting. Behind the workers, the scene opens up onto a green landscape. That is nature, but nature understood only as that vast supply of matter that has made itself available to be spent in human production . In the world of Love, on the other hand, nature is represented only by a bouquet of flowers in a vase (that is, in its aesthetic dimension). Such a view of nature serves no purpose and is, in its superior character, useless. Human work too is represented only by the paintings that hang behind the kissing couple. It is as if Brueghel were saying that man can be enslaved by his work, but he can also be the master of his creation. As it was the case with Sight and Hearing, here, too, Aphrodite and Eros are engaged in the very sense that the painting has set to illustrate: they embrace and kiss each other. Brueghel seems to have made a choice by deciding which aspect of touch to depict, for touching is not homologous to kissing; indeed , there is a whole variety of qualities or activities that fall under the sense of touch: holding and feeling with one’s hand, grasping, distinguishing roughness from smoothness, warmth from cold, feeling an object’s weight, etc. The choice to make the kiss the representative paradigm of touch is certainly a telling one. In kissing, one’s lips do touch another’s, but one cannot kiss another ’s lips without being kissed back. It is this reciprocity exemplified by the union of the lips that makes the kiss the most characteristic case of touching, for touch in each of its manifestations remains essentially reciprocal. The kiss is also a sign of passion—in this case, the passion of love. Both touch and passion share a locus: the body. If sight has the eye as its organ and hearing works through the ear, the sensorium of touch is none other than our flesh. For the flesh that burns with such a passion, it is not enough to see or hear the beloved—it begs the beloved’s touch, in touching and in being touched. Our body, however, is more than simply the organ of contact; it is the register that more acutely suffers the entire scope of the beloved’s impact on us. It is the flesh that palpitates in expectation, trembles in anguish, blazes with arousal, and is caught in rapture. On the next level, the armor—prohibiting the Other’s touch—could also be taken not as the antithetical but rather as the reverse view of the inventing flesh. When the two contradictory paradigms conflate and their antithesis collapses , a new antithesis emerges: the armor is an allegory of the skin—of the epidermis of the body—or of the body itself, which, by allowing one to touch it, at the same time, protects its intangible interiority. In touch the intangible makes itself all the more evident—for...

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