FLEMISH SCHOOL. ****** RUBENS. ***** VIENNA GALLERY. A FESTIVAL OF VENUS. The power of beauty is too easily felt to need an expla• nation of its causes. At all times and in every nation man has been eager to address his vows to it; and the ancients who deified every object, worshipped it under the name of Venus. They even wished that her empire should be universal, they therefore acknowledged a Sea, a Celestial, and a Terrestial Venus. The Sea Venus received the name of Aphrodite, the Celestial that of Urania, and the Terrestial, the mother of Love and of Pleasures, received an infinite number of additional names, the greater part derived from the places where altars or temples had been raised to her. Larcher, in a work, the sole object of which is Venus, bas entered in the most minute details on this subject. In the picture before us, Rubens has represented a Festiv al in honour of Venus in the island of Cythera : nymphs, satyrs, and fauns are dancing around her statue. Numerous Loves surround it and offer a garland, a priestess is throwing incense on an Acerra placed before the sta tue. The temple of the Goddess is seen in the back-ground, to the left. The whole of the part on the right hand is filled with trees, through which the setting-sun is discerned. This picture has a most brilliant effect: it forms part of the Gallery of Vienna, and has been engraved by Prenner. Width 11 feet 8 inches; height 7 feet 5 inches. |