And so the story goes that a perfect gentleman, surrounded by animals – those that he kills for fun, those that keep him company, those that provide him with entertainment, those that he uses for sport, and those that he eats, all of them never to be moved from one category to the other – refuses one day to be deferential to power. he didn't just challenge a more powerful person than himself – he had done that a lot in his heyday. what he did was to confront power itself. the power that doesn't allow horses to be eaten, and accepts guinea pigs to be tortured for the advancement of knowledge, and doesn't encourage dressage with cows, or the abattoir to be turned into a bettable spectacle. And so he refused to be painted in this scene, surrounded by all these animals in their very strict functions of service to himself so as to avoid contributing to the food chain of power.
for the future archaeologists of Silicon Alley