war against hell

by zach miller

For this piece, I chose to focus on the right panel, or the “Panel of hell.” (source) “While lust prevails in the centre panel, in the scene of Hell all the Cardinal Sins are punished.” (source) The temptations of sin have officially carried humanity too far. For this piece, I depict figures attempting to fight their way back to the middle panel: A time before the punishment began.

The three figures I depict in this piece come from Peter Paul Rubens’ The Consequences of War. The man is Mars, the Roman god of war, the woman is Venus, the Roman goddess of love, and the child is Cupid. While Cupid’s role is not at concrete as Mars’ and Venus’, it could be said that Cupid is the god of lust. In the depiction, Mars is attempting to charge into battle while Venus is “desperately trying to stop him.” (source) In the context of Bosch’s painting, Mars is attempting to use violence to force his way back to the middle panel, but he is unsuccessful. 

Mars cannot break through the border because it is guarded by a wall from John Martin’s Pandemonium. Pandemonium is a depiction of an imagined capital city of hell, which makes the wall in the painting perfect to guard the border of hell in Bosch’s painting. The wall is there because while it makes sense to cross the borders in Bosch’s painting from left to right (moving forward in time) like Haring’s stick figure is doing elsewhere, it should be impossible to cross any border from right to left (moving backward in time). In addition, Mars is attempting to break through this border with the hope of re-entering a time of more peace, but using violence to achieve peace is counterintuitive. Venus knows this, so with a desperate expression, she attempts to stop Mars.

In this piece, I replaced the face of Mars with the face from Edvard Munch’s The Scream. In my piece, Mars comes to the realization that his efforts are futile; that the point of crisis is long gone. It is much too late to return to the middle panel. I wanted to convey the emotion that he might have with this realization. The face in The Scream is a classic artistic showing of agony and distress, so I thought it was perfect for the job.

The title of Peter Paul Rubens’ painting, The Consequences of War, is fit, as the painting warns of the many consequences of war. One of these consequences is shown under Mars’ right foot: Mars is violently stepping on a book. This shows how in times of war, intellectual pursuits are often ignored. However, I wanted to exhibit the abandonment of peace and prosperity that Mars commits to with his violence. To do this, I pasted a dove from Louis Jean François Lagrenée’s Mars & Venus, Allegory of Peace. This dove not just represents peace, but also a happier time for Mars and Venus. This is because the dove comes from a painting that also depicts Mars, “utterly captivated” by the beauty of a sleeping Venus. (source) In Lagrenée’s painting, Mars and Venus both seem content and happy. By putting a dove from this painting on the book that Mars is stepping on, I show how Mars is abandoning better times.