0203AresAthena_Rubens

0203AresAthena_Rubens

National Gallery site
Homer, Iliad 5.825-909

Peter Paul Rubens, "Minerva Protects Pax from Mars" ("Peace and War"), 1629, National Gallery, London, inv. 46.

This gift to Charles I was painted while Rubens was in England as an envoy from Philip IV of Spain and clearly articulates the painter's attitude toward British-Spanish diplomacy. (Cf. Baker & Henry). Rubens himself said his successful diplomacy was "the connecting knot in the chain of all the confederations of Europe." (Schama, 208)

Homer calls both Ares and Athena "warlike" (πολεμηίος). But, clearly their approach to warfare is distinctly opposite: Athena is defensive, strategic warfare and Ares represents the bloodthirsty madness of violent war. Athena, as champion of civilization, employs wisdom to defend society from the ravages of war.

"Peace is not merely the absence of war, but also the source abundance." (NG site) Rubens adds considerable detail to an allegorical scene stylized by Tintoretto about 50 years earlier. Rubens also repeated the trope on the ceiling of Banqueting House about three years later and then less optimistically in "The Horrors of War"in Palazzo Pitti Florence (cf. pensées in NG, the Louvre and elsewhere). Within this narrative set, Minerva interposes herself vigorously for the protection of civilization against the ravages of marauding Mars.

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: complete illustrated guide (London ), 595 offer substantial bibliographic leads; and now S. Schama New Yorker 28 Apr 2007, 207 - 20.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.