The Death of Decius Mus in Battle (1618) by Peter Paul Rubens
Grafika Art Collection (EU) 2015, No. 00354.
1.000 pcs, 67,2 x 47,2 cm.
Rubens executed the cycle of eight paintings of Konsul Decius Mus as cartoons for tapestries. Publius Decius Mus, son of Quintus, of the plebeian gens Decia, was a Roman consul in 340 BC. He is noted particularly for sacrificing himself in battle through the ritual of devotio, as recorded by the Augustan historian Livy. This painting is considered the highlight of the cycle.
The cycle climaxes in the death of Decius Mus, set amidst the Romans’ battle against the Latins. Decius Mus allows himself to be run through by a lance before the ranks of the attacking Romans and the fleeing Latins. His white stallion rears as he slips off its back. The animal’s elegant pose resembles the levade, a figure in dressage, which was considered a royal art in Rubens’s day. The pose thus appears ennobling, underlining the grandeur of the consul’s state of mind as expressed in his sacrificial death. His face transfigured, Decius Mus sees the heavens open above him, and rays of divine light touch him as a sign that he is the chosen one. His imminent death is vividly expressed by his sinking to the ground to join the corpses of the fallen lying there. In an oil sketch for this picture (Museo del Prado, Madrid), Rubens also gave physical form to the idea of being the elect: a genius appears from the clouds, bringing a laurel wreath and a palm branch to the dying man. Yet Rubens decided not to personify the reward of victory in this way in his painting. He staged Decius Mus’s sacrificial death as a saint’s martyrdom: we are reminded of depictions of the Fall of Saul, in which the saint falls from his horse when dazzled by the sudden blaze of divine light. This fall does not kill Saul, but marks a crucial turning point in his life.
The Death of Decius Mus in Battle (1618) by Peter Paul Rubens
Grafika Art Collection (EU) 2015, No. 00354.
1.000 pcs, 67,2 x 47,2 cm.
Rubens executed the cycle of eight paintings of Konsul Decius Mus as cartoons for tapestries. Publius Decius Mus, son of Quintus, of the plebeian gens Decia, was a Roman consul in 340 BC. He is noted particularly for sacrificing himself in battle through the ritual of devotio, as recorded by the Augustan historian Livy. This painting is considered the highlight of the cycle.
The cycle climaxes in the death of Decius Mus, set amidst the Romans’ battle against the Latins. Decius Mus allows himself to be run through by a lance before the ranks of the attacking Romans and the fleeing Latins. His white stallion rears as he slips off its back. The animal’s elegant pose resembles the levade, a figure in dressage, which was considered a royal art in Rubens’s day. The pose thus appears ennobling, underlining the grandeur of the consul’s state of mind as expressed in his sacrificial death. His face transfigured, Decius Mus sees the heavens open above him, and rays of divine light touch him as a sign that he is the chosen one. His imminent death is vividly expressed by his sinking to the ground to join the corpses of the fallen lying there. In an oil sketch for this picture (Museo del Prado, Madrid), Rubens also gave physical form to the idea of being the elect: a genius appears from the clouds, bringing a laurel wreath and a palm branch to the dying man. Yet Rubens decided not to personify the reward of victory in this way in his painting. He staged Decius Mus’s sacrificial death as a saint’s martyrdom: we are reminded of depictions of the Fall of Saul, in which the saint falls from his horse when dazzled by the sudden blaze of divine light. This fall does not kill Saul, but marks a crucial turning point in his life.