We see women in the image. We see the night in it. We see pottery, depicted together with bodies of women. There are fields and mountains in the image. We see holes. We see the dawn. We see the image. We see it, before we read or understand it. We just see it. We can see some images together with others like a flock; even when they appear as scattered images, we are still able to connect them with each other. An image seems to echo another. An image, when we look at it closer, seems to disclose an unknown world. One seems to be in a swift movement, while another gently disappears. Images pass through this narrow space, to open up a different world. Images, at times, place a handful of the vast pattern of the universe onto a palm of our hands. Then it blurs. Then again, it whites out. At a point, certain imagery occurs bluntly to my mind. The woman’s face is familiar to me. Those women seem to gaze at me. That night obstinately chases the time of numerous nights that I am able to remember. The roundness of the pottery looks so tangible, as if I could easily take it out from the image. The protruding thickness of the layered colors allures me to touch it. The fields are remote and the mountains soar high, yet suggest an approximate and familiar hill at the same time. The hole is as deep as an abyss. But why does that time looks like a dawn to me? The more I look at an image, the larger grows the amusement. Looking at them over and over, the delight is more and more refreshed.

Let’s talk about this delight. In Greek mythology, Danaë was the daughter of Acrisius, the King of Argos. The only concern of Acrisius, known as a moderate man and a benign governor, was his lack of a son who can succeed him. One day, an oracle warned him that his grandson, who will be born from his own daughter Danaë, will kill him. To prevent this destiny, he imprisons the virgin daughter up on a high spire. Zeus, the notorious seducing god, heard the news and sneaked in to the tower in disguise of golden rain, to escape from the jealous sight of his wife Hera. Danaë got pregnant with Perseus, who would become the audacious hero of the era. Perseus is known for the episode of turning Atlas into stone, showing him the face of Medusa, whose head was in Perseus’ possession as Atlas attacked Perseus on his way home, after beheading her. The myth dictates that Atlas, turned to stone, became the Atlas Mountains. Anyhow, Perseus was abandoned right after the birth by his own grandfather because of the oracle. Another interpretation says that Perseus’ father is not Zeus but Proetus, Acrisius’ twin brother, thus another grandfather on his mother’s side. According to this version, Proetus raped the niece out of fear of having his twin brother to be killed by his grandson. While the real father was unclear, as the sound of the crying newborn was to be heard, Acrisius questioned Danaë about the truth, to which she answered with the name of Zeus. Dreading Zeus’ vengeance, Acrisious put Perseus in a wooden chest and threw it into the ocean. After a series of tumultuous incidents, Acrisius died, hit by Perseus’ quoit – the oracle was fulfilled.

Mythology in general is full of stories of men, while it is mostly depicted with women. Danaë is one of the most popular figures. Many painters portrayed her over the history. Rembrandt, who achieved wealth and fame already in his early age through his art, also painted Danaë. He was the most successful artist in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, as it was situated on the most vivid route for trading in the seventeenth-century Europe. Rembrandt’s Danaë was completed during the golden age of his career. In the artist’s self portraits of this period, he appears proudly adorned with luxurious garment. His Danaë was born in this epoch, depicted in full of holy and mysterious flair. After this period, Rembrandt’s successful life started to decline: his wife died during childbirth, his extravagant lifestyle ended up in a uge accumulation of debt, which led him to a long hiatus as a painter. In any case, Rembrandt must have seen the moment of rejoice in Danaë’s voluptuous body at Zeus’ golden rain, after her dreary captivity on the top of the spire.

Gustav Klimt also painted Danaë. In the chaos of the coming new century in Europe, Austrian Empire still persisted, where Klimt lived. It is very apparent that Klimt focused on female figures, his studio was full of naked women posing for him and he was subjected to envy and jealousy of people due to his continuous scandals. In the same era, Sigmund Freud also lived in Vienna, who interpreted human consciousness centering in sexuality. Through painting female nudes, Klimt expressed physical sensuality and pleasure, human oppression and freedom, desperation hidden behind extravagance and the fear of death that dwells in life – all this could be read as a reflection of the Zeitgeist, torn down and in struggle. The reason of Klimt’s death is unclear whether it was due to influenza or syphilis. After his death, the decadent Austrian bourgeoisie quickly surrendered to Nazi. Klimt’s Danaë is depicted in the moment of her total submission to Zeus’ golden rain, as a readhead with translucent skin, voluptuous and sensuous yet innocent like a child. Her body fills up the frame, comfortably crouching without any sense of resistance. This woman seems to be positioned closer to the earth than to the sky, submerged in a dreamlike scene rather than a real one.

Aestheticized symbolism such as women, pottery, obscurity, hole, breath, dance, grass and wind mingle in Leeje’s painting, yet instead of suggesting to retrieve the hidden meanings behind them, the mystery prevails in the rhythm made of the chain of symbols as well as in the procession that is carried over from an image to another. Perceiving them, a precedent image overlaps over the next one and then disappears out of the frame of another following image. The sequential composition of different images captivates the viewers’ eyes; they keep the viewer looking at them. The experience leads me to a possible conclusion, that these are conceived to return my attention to my own gaze. More concretely, they indicate my positioning in viewing. Whether this position situates in a physical space configured by mountains and fields, or in a temporal space like the night or the dawn, whether within pottery or universe, or indulging in caressing female bodies, or getting indulged, me being the body that gets caressed, my position switches constantly, depending on the placement of my self. In other words, this gaze belongs to Danaë. She was a starting point for the narrative in a myth, but at the same time, she was not a confirmed figure in detail; she was a figure who had to constantly gaze at the series of tragedy that initiated from her. The starting point of the narrative has been turned into numerous images, yet we don’t know when was the moment of her becoming a proper subject of gaze. The value of Leeje’s image could be found in the moment of this activation of the missing subject, whose point of view that has been invisible finally synchronizes to the present. Can one paint what Danaë saw? Can the story of Danaë, told by herself, ever become a myth? Which part of mythology could be destroyed, to open up to which kind of new ones? In this regard, this stroke of brush could be a truthfully courageous one.