Mars being disarmed by Venus - J.L. David
(Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels)
Mars being disarmed by Venus ( Mars désarmé par Vénus ) is a painting accomplished by the French artist Jacques-Louis David in 1824. At over 3 m (10 ft) high, this monumental painting was the last work of Jacques-Louis David in his exile in Brussels, before he died due to an accident in 1825. The artist started working on it at the age of 73, and it took him three years to finish his work.
Plagued by illness in 1820, David began to sense the end of his life and was determined to paint one last grand statement. In 1821 he began work on Mars Disarmed by Venus and the Three Graces. Completed in 1824, the work is bold, surprising and puzzling, and many people then and now have wondered exactly what he meant by this strange scene played out against an ornate marble pavilion in the sky.
The setting is surrealistic, a temple floating in the clouds. Mars, the god of war, is succumbing to the charms of Venus, but the outcome is still in doubt. Venus the Goddess of Love and her acolytes, the three Graces and Cupid, are taking away the armament of Mars the God of War. Venus hesitates to place the crown of roses on his head - an emblem of submission to the pleasures of the flesh - and Cupid, who unties Mars' sandal, has put down his bow with the golden arrow of desire and the leaden arrow of repulsion side-by-side and not yet fired. Mars is shown nude and David delicately placed one of a pair of rather scruffy cooing doves to conceal his genitals for the sake of propriety. The pale Venus is an extremely delicate and sinuous form and much thinner than this voluptuous goddess is usually depicted. Behind the divine couple on the antique couch are the Three Graces who perform various tasks. One offers a cup of wine to Mars who has no free hand to take it, another rolls his shield as if it were a child's hoop and we can only wonder where the Grace on the left thinks she is putting Mars' helmet. Traditionally, the Graces were the beautiful handmaidens of Venus, but these are patently 'graceless Graces' and their gestures and expressions border on the absurd and comical. But Mars takes pleasure in being disarmed and succumbs to the charms of Venus, suggesting perhaps, that Love conquers the baser nature of Conflict, of Strife and War.
Mars is no longer leading others onto the battlefield but now allows his warrior nature to fight the greatest battle of all: the struggle for the triumph of the true self. He willingly faces his ego and re-integrates his masculine and feminine aspects through determination and unconditional love. Venus is no longer so self-absorbed that her jealousy, anger, cruelty, and vanity dictate her actions. Her mastery of sensual love now broadens into spiritual love. Love conquers all, and ultimately triumphs.
The overall effect is certainly perplexing and unnerving and it is also painted in a highly colored hard-edged style that perhaps suggests considerable contributions from his Belgian assistants. The passion of David for the theatrical is manifest here, if one judges the frivolity and the sensuality of the scene: all the actors are naked and do not express any sense of decency.
This impressive and ambitious painting attempts to synthetize antiquity, idealism and realism. The aged artist sent this provocative and ironic work to an exhibition in Paris from his exile, knowing that at the time already the Romanticism was the fashionable movement in the Salon.
The painting is exhibited in the main hall of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, close to the entrance.
~*~
