Death of Adonis 1612

Peter Paul Rubens rendered this emotional scene of the Death of Adonis with pen and brown ink. Here, we witness Venus, goddess of love, mourning over the body of Adonis, a mortal youth beloved by her, with Cupid at her side. The swooning pose of Venus, her dramatic gesture of grief, has roots stretching back to antiquity, echoing the figures of mourning women found on ancient sarcophagi. In the Renaissance, this pose was revived, often to depict the Virgin Mary lamenting over the dead Christ. This echoes forward into future artistic depictions of loss and mourning. Such postures and symbols resurface across centuries, each time imbued with the cultural anxieties and emotional realities of the time. This reflects our collective memory and how we process deeply felt experiences, each repetition echoing human emotion on a subconscious level. It is a testament to art’s enduring ability to express the human condition.