Artists’ are driven by an immortality fantasy. Also, they are poetic types who feel the contents of life-psyche deeply. They need a subject, many of the Europeans chose “woman,” for she is at the center of their psyche; her unending pull both profound fodder for inspiration, sparking their instincts, stimulating the artist towards production.

Also, this obsession with the woman is a form of masochistic self-torture to tease themselves unending, turning an interest into a fascination, and finally into an addiction. (As one painting will not do, and one lover neither; all the complications of this muse relationship come with it!) On the contrary, it has been a form of liberation (hence, the “libertine”) to feel their erotic nature.