Die Schrecken des Krieges

Rubens finished this in 1638, thirty years into a war that had already torn through the German lands and would grind on for another decade. We know exactly what he meant by it, because he wrote it down in a letter to the Florentine court painter Sustermans, who received the canvas. The armed man breaking loose is Mars, war itself, rushing out with a bloodied sword. Venus tries to hold him back, one of the Furies drags him on, and monsters of plague and famine trail alongside, the companions Rubens said war always brings. The figure that carries the real weight is the woman in black at the left, veil torn, jewels gone. Rubens called her the grieving Europe, worn down by years of ruin, and by 1638 he had watched much of that ruin from close by as a diplomat.