The Israel Museum presents "Rubens, Venus, and Adonis: Anatomy of a Tragedy"
January 10 - June 9, 2012
This exhibition sheds new light on Peter Paul Rubens' seminal painting The Death of Adonis (ca. 1614), a masterpiece from the Israel Museum's European Art collection. Opening the Museum's new "Focus" series, which will offer opportunities for an in-depth exploration of major works from the Museum's holdings, Rubens, Venus, and Adonis examines this monumental masterpiece, analyzing its iconographic sources, its composition, and its place within the development of Rubens' style. For the first time, drawings, preparatory oil sketches, and paintings of the same theme by other Flemish masters of Rubens' time are brought together to illuminate aspects of Rubens' special interest in the subject of Venus and Adonis, a result of his readings in Classical literature. The exhibition is curated by Shlomit Steinberg, Hans Dichand Curator of European Art.
Image: Peter Paul Rubens, The Death of Adonis, ca. 1614. Courtesy of the Israel Museum.
