ABSTRACT Fertilization narratives are powerful biological stories that can be used for social ends, and 20th-century artists have used fertilization-based imagery to convey political and social ideas. In Danae , Gustav Klimt used an esoteric stage of early human embryos to indicate successful fertilization and the inability of government repression to stifle creativity. In Man, Controller of the Universe , Diego Rivera painted a mural of a man controlling an ovulating ovary, depicting Trotsky's view that society will rationally regulate human fertilization. His former wife, Frida Kahlo, refuted this view in Moses: Nucleus of Creation , wherein she painted images of fertilization and embryo formation as the ultimate acts of erotic consummation and generation.