Collapse of Adonis

Here the myth of Venus and Adonis from Ovid’s Metamorphoses is exaggerated by Lowe’s reinterpretation of Rubens drawing of the same title (c.1604) and through the depiction of Rubens’ earlier Venus from his ‘Council of the Gods’(c.1602). Venus’ lamentation for her lover Adonis appears intensified by Lowe’s abstract painterly application of Adonis having been fatally gored by a wild boar, and yet, the tragic scene also appears to be itself transformed into an allegory of humanity’s postmortem metamorphosis into elements of the natural environment through the cyclical nature of life and death as illustrated in Ovid’s epic poem.