Paolo Caliari says Véronèse. Venus and Adonis. about 1580.
Marry of Vulcan, Venus had as an Adonis lover famous for his beauty. This one is liked at the same time of Venus, goddess of the Love and the Beauty and Perséphone, queen of the Hells. The jealousy between the 2 goddesses requires the intervention of Zeus. This last decides: Adonis must pass 1 third of the year with Perséphone to the hells, 1 another third with Aphrodite, and will be able to have with his own way the last third.
Adonis, chooses to spend his months of freedom at Venus. These feelings cause the jealousy of 1 another Venus lover, Arès (Mars), god of the War. This one, to be avenged, sends against Adonis a wild boar which wounds it mortally. The drops of blood poured on the ground at the time of its death give rise to a new plant with red flower, the anemone (or the pink).
Véronèse deploys in this fabric the width of its talent of colorist. The lightness and the intimacy of the atmosphere within this natural decoration are restored with a great delicacy thanks to the control of the plays of light and the harmony of the tone.
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