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Robert Rauschenberg's Odalisque (figs. 1,2), executed between 1955 and 1958 and now in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, illustrates perfectly what has been termed the <> of the artist's images 1. <>2 its principal components are a stuffed rooster, a cushion, a baluster or newel, and a large, open box, which is pasted and painted with a bewildering variety of images and materials. A number of the images are drawn from the art of the past, while others are taken from modern and often popular sources. In addition, there are several family photographs and a man's tie. Looked at superficially, the result might seem to be a random gathering of object and images - a contemporary and eccentric Kunstkammer - but the esoteric nature of some of the images and the wit of certain juxtapositions indicate that there is a logic, or, perhaps more accurately, several overlapping logics governing their selection and organization.
The front of Rauschenberg's box (figs. 1,3) is open to reveal an illuminated but empty, stage-like space^3. Above the opening, and a little like proscenium arch (to continue the analogy with the theatre), is set a narrow panel, decorated with an isolated, nude, female figure. She is the nymph on the left side of Titan's Pastoral Concert in the Louvre^4, and now she stands on a sward of real,dried grass, glued to the wooden backing. On the corresponding panel on the back of this vacant tabernacle(fig. 4) is pasted a reproduction of an an odd copy of Leonardo's Last Supper, altered to include a still-life in the lower left corner of the painting^5. The rear opening of the box is screened by a light curtain, which lends support to the idea of identifying the box as a theatre or tabernacle^6.
Reproductions of works of art also appear on the sides of the box, but these tend to be more abstruse images. On the left side (figs. 2,5), at the upper right, is a photograph of Rauschenberg's own Female Figure(Blueprint) of about 1949^7.At the bottom, near the centre, appears a fragment of a sheet of studies in pen by Michelangelo of putti^8, and immediately above that can be made out the arm and head of Mars from Veronese's Venus and Mars Bound by Cupid, in the Metropolitan Museum in New York^9. In the top left corner of the right side of the box(figs. 1,6) is pasted an even more recondite work of art -François Edou-
and Picot's Cupid Fleeing from Psyche, first exhibited in the Salon of 1817 and now in the Louvre^10. Similarly, the baying hound in the bottom right corner is cut from a reproduction of Sir Edwin Landseer's Stag at Bay, exhibited at the Royal academy in 1846 and engraved by Thomas Lanseer^10.
In contrast to these images drawn from the grand traditions of painting, others are taken directly from popular and even vulgar contemporary sources. There are clippings from comic strips (one of which is entitled Beyond Mars), cuttings showing pin-up girls (one on each side of the box), and others showing bathing scenes, kilted highlanders, a couple kissing, a stag,

[captions] Fig. 1 Robert Rauschenberg, Odalisque, Museum Ludwig, Cologne [/captions]
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