The Union of Earth and Water (Antwerp and the Scheldt)

When Rubens painted this around 1618, his city, Antwerp, had a problem you'd never guess from the mythology. The mouth of the river Scheldt, Antwerp's only route to the open sea, had been blocked for years by the Dutch to the north, and the trade the city lived on was strangling. So the embrace at the centre isn't only decorative. The woman is Cybele, the earth, standing in for Antwerp, and the powerful old river god is the Scheldt itself. Their union is really a wish, that city and sea be joined again and the port reopened. Victory crowns the pair from above while a Triton blows a conch below. The blockade Rubens had in mind would not be lifted in his lifetime.