Horrors of War--Ethan Jackson
Consequences of War, a 1637-38 painting of oil on canvas by Flemish artist Sir Peter Paul Rubens that uses a variety of symbolic images to depict the horrors of the Thirty Years War across Europe. Ruben was commissioned to create this painting by Ferdinando II de’ Medici, an Italian duke descended from an illustrious political and financial family in Tuscany. The Thirty Years War started as a regional war in the Holy Roman Empire fought between rebelling Protestants and the ruling Catholics. This war quickly spiraled out of control as the Hapsburgs, the ruling Catholic family in both the Holy Roman Empire and Spain, soon pushed too far back against the Protestant rebels, taking a Protestant territory and electoral vote illegally. This drew in the Netherlands, who had recently won independence from Spain and had recently been attacked anew by Spain, France, who were the rivals of the Hapsburgs, Denmark, whose king had territorial claims within the Empire, Britain, who had familia ties to the Empire and bankrolled the rebels, and Sweden, whose king was Protestant and sought to aid the rebels. In response to this, the ruling Catholic Habsburgs formed the Catholic League, consisting of their Imperial Army, Spain, who was also Catholic and who also had Hapsburgs ruling, most German princes, and Austria.
I found this piece when researching the Thirty Years War a few years ago. I was researching the war because of a throwaway reference I was preparing to make in a paper I was writing and wanted to better understand what is a vastly complex and hard to understand war. I sought out visual aids and pieces of art that were made during or about this war and used it to try and supplement the material that I was reading about the war in order to better understand it. This painting relates very strongly with all the works we have read and analyzed that have to do with civilian death and collateral damage. The Thirty Years War was a devastating war for Central Europe. Places in the Holy Roman Empire lost as much as half of its population, and the casualty numbers resulting from this conflict were only matched two centuries later during the First World War. This painting demonstrates this violence and senseless death by presenting a setting that forces the viewer to ask “Why?”. This why encapsulates the violence, the death, and the destruction that this war wrought. By posing this question the painting attempts to show war as senseless, both then and now.
The painting uses symbols in the painting to express its viewpoint. At the center of the painting and the focal point of attention, is Mars, the Roman god of war. He is dressed as a soldier with a sword and a shield. Underneath his feet there is a book which he is stomping on. Venus, the Roman god of love, is drawn as a naked woman to Mars’ left who is attempting to restrain Mars. Fury Alekto, a Greek and Roman figure who embodied anger, leads Mars forward with a torch in his hand. Fury Alekto is accompanied by both Pestilence and Fear, both depicted as monsters in the painting. These symbolic figures and their mythological meanings attempt to explore the suffering that is being done to Europe because of this war. The Thirty Years War ravaged Europe in a way that only the mechanized instruments of death used in the First World War would surpass, as the civilian death toll in the Thirty Years War was between 3.5 and 6.5 million. The death toll in total was somewhere between 4.5 and 8 million. For reference, the civilian death toll two centuries later in WWI is thought to be around 6 million. The amount of civilian death in the Thirty Years War was outlandishly high, spurring people such as Rueben to question why such cruelty, symbolized in his painting by the god of war being led to slaughter millions of people.
Two ladies are in the center of the painting, falling forward with outstretched arms, with three angels on the ground, two of whom are grasping at one of the women. A soldier can be seen in the exact center of the painting, with armor on, a sword in one hand, and a shield in another. There is an angel above, and one of the women is leaning towards him. There are two women and a man, with a child in one of the womens’ arms. All are cowering on the ground underneath the soldier. There is a man with a torch in one hand falling to the ground beside the soldier.