Death of Adonis 1600 - 1688

Claude Mellan etched "The Death of Adonis," a poignant depiction of the tragic demise of Venus's beloved. Here, Adonis lies lifeless, watched over by a despairing Venus. Her outstretched hand, a gesture echoing across time, reminds us of similar figures in antiquity, like the mourning women on sarcophagi, their gestures of grief bridging millennia. The death of Adonis itself is a symbol, a motif of male beauty and untimely death. The myth resonates with earlier tales of dying gods, such as Tammuz, whose cult was marked by similar lamentations. This symbolic death and rebirth taps into our collective memory, triggering deep-seated emotions. Adonis's demise elicits our own anxieties about mortality, beauty, and loss, engaging us on a subconscious level. This eternal return of symbolic gestures reflects the cyclical nature of human experience. These archetypes remain powerful, constantly reshaped yet eternally familiar.