Michael the photographer and Stubbs the painter are parallel characters. Both render beautiful portraits.

Stubbs literally dissects a woman to learn how to accurately portray female anatomy. Michael's long discussions of the female body show how he uses his photography to dissect women into their component parts, focusing on their breasts, buttocks, and other aspects of physical form. Although Stubbs seemed to capture the essence of Whistlejacket in his portrait of the horse, his paintings of women are shallow, never reaching into the women to show their true selves. In fact, the women of his patrons are mere adjuncts to their men; Stubbs actually paints over women in his pictures in order to emphasize the males. Similarly, Michael is enthralled by women's physical natures, but shows no understanding of their personalities. For Alex and Virgie, he is a plaything; he has no understanding of them as human beings...