Nicolas Poussin
Mythology and classical literature

Classical Greek and Roman mythology, history and literature provided the subjects for many of his paintings, particularly during his early years in Rome. His first successful painting in Rome, The Death of Germanicus, was based upon a story in the Annals of Tacitus. In his early years he devoted a series of paintings, full of color, movement and sensuality, to the Bacchanals, colorful portrayals of ceremonies devoted to the god of wine Bacchus, and celebrating the goddesses Venus and Flore. He also created The Birth of Venus (1635), telling the story of the Roman goddess through an elaborate composition full of dynamic figures for the French patron, Cardinal Richelieu, who had also commissioned the Bacchanals. Many of his mythological paintings featured gardens and floral themes; his first Roman patrons, the Barberini family, had one of largest and most famous gardens in Rome. Another of his early major themes was the Rape of the Sabine Women, recounting how the King of Rome, Romulus, wanting wives for his soldiers, invited the members of the neighboring Sabine tribe for a festival, and then, on his signal, kidnapped all of the women. He painted two versions, one in 1634, now in the Metropolitan Museum, and the other in 1637, now in the Louvre. He also painted two versions illustrating a story of Ovid in the Metamorphoses in which Venus mourning the death of Adonis after a hunting accident, transforms his blood into the color of the anemone flower.

Throughout his career, Poussin frequently achieved what the art historian Willibald Sauerländer terms a "consonance... between the pagan and the Christian world". An example is The Four Seasons (1660–64), in which Christian and pagan themes are mingled: Spring, traditionally personified by the Roman goddess Flora, instead features Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden; Summer is symbolized not by Ceres but by the biblical Ruth.

In his later years, his mythological paintings became more somber, and often introduced the symbols of mortality and death. The last painting he was working on before his death was Apollo in love with Daphne, which he presented to his patron, the future Cardinal Massimi, in 1665. The figures on the left of the canvas, around Apollo, largely represented vitality and life, while those on the right, around Daphne, were symbols of sterility and death. He was unable to complete the painting because of the trembling of his hand, and the figures on the right are unfinished.
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