Venus and Adonis, a classical myth, was a common subject for art during the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Some works which have been titled Venus and Adonis are:

Literary works

Paintings

Venus and Adonis is an opera in three acts and a prologue by the English Baroque composer John Blow, composed in about 1683. It was written for the court of King Charles II at either London or Windsor. It is considered by some to be either a semi-opera or a masque, but The New Grove names it as the earliest surviving English opera. The author of the libretto was surmised to have been Aphra Behn due to the feminist nature of the text, and that she later worked with Blow on the play The Lucky Chance. However, according to the musicologist Bruce Wood, in his 2008 critical edition of the work for the Purcell Society, the librettist "has been identified by James Winn as Anne Kingsmill, subsequently married as Anne Finch". The story is based on the Classical myth of Venus and Adonis, which was also the basis for Shakespeare's poem Venus and Adonis, as well as Ovid's poem of the same name in his Metamorphoses. In 2014, this opera was revived as part of the Festival of Chichester by City Wall Productions. Reset in the 1960s during the Grosvenor Square protests, City Wall Productions have reimagined and reset he story for a new generation.

Venus and Adonis is a 1562 painting by Paolo Veronese, now held at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Augsburg.

It shows the moment at which Venus tries to stop Adonis from going hunting after having a premonition of his death. He had painted another version of the same subject in 1580, but the style and composition of the two works are completely different. According to some critics, Veronese based the 1562 version on Titian's painting of the subject, which he first encountered through engravings by Cornelis Cort. Veronese puts Venus's shoulders in the same position and the general approach is similar to Titian's, though Veronese's work is less dramatic and more composed, with the characters' relationship based more on looks than physical contact and with Venus stopping Adonis by holding onto his dogs' leads and hiding his hunting horn.

References