In this paper, I engage in a dialogue about the influence of ethical value on the aesthetic value of a work of art. I focus on a particularly contested painting—Titian’s Rape of Europa—and highlight its ambivalences, which make it difficult to assess its moral standing in definitive terms. As part of an objection to my argument, I turn to Susanne K. Langer’s remark on the sadist’s perspective, which, as she argues, appropriates the victim’s pain. I then ask whether Europa’s perspective might similarly be absorbed into that of the perpetrator—and, by extension, the spectator.
