Famous work · not an exact-location map point
Consequences of War
An allegory, not a view of a place: Mars dragged to war past a weeping Europe, painted as the Thirty Years' War raged.
No real-world viewpoint
This work does not depict a place you can visit — see the notes below.
Consequences of War — at a glance
- Artist
- Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640)
- Year
- 1637–1638
- Movement
- Flemish Baroque
- Subject
- Mythological allegory of war (no real location)
- Context
- Painted during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648)
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 206 × 342 cm
- Now at
- Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence
Overview
Consequences of War, also called The Horrors of War, is a late allegorical painting by Peter Paul Rubens, made in 1637–38 for Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. It shows the war-god Mars striding forward with sword and shield, pulled on by the Fury Alecto and unable to be held back by Venus, while a black-clad, wailing figure of Europe throws up her arms behind. It is oil on canvas, about 206 by 342 cm, and it hangs in the Galleria Palatina of the Palazzo Pitti in Florence.
Is there a real place?
Scholarship No. Unlike a topographical picture, Consequences of War does not depict a real, visitable location. The one architectural element — the open Temple of Janus at the left — is a symbol drawn from ancient Roman custom, not a surviving building. The painting's ‘place’ is Europe as a whole, and specifically the continent laid waste by the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648).
What is in the painting?
A surging pile of figures moves right to left. Mars, in armour, tramples a book and a drawing; Venus, pale and nude, clings to his arm; the dark Fury drags him on by the other hand; putti scatter. On the ground lie a woman with a broken lute, a compass and dividers, arrows. At the far left the doorway of the Temple of Janus stands open; on the right, Europe in black raises her arms to a stormy sky, a globe with a cross beside her.
Look closely
Mars trampling the arts
The war-god strides over a book and a drawing — learning and art crushed underfoot.
The woman with a broken lute
Harmony, Rubens wrote, ‘incompatible with the discord of War’.
The open Temple of Janus
Its doorway stands open at the left — by Roman custom the temple was shut only in time of peace.
Europe in black
A mourning figure with a torn veil throws up her arms beside a cross-topped globe.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A single violent diagonal of bodies, dark on the right, that seems to drag the whole design leftward with Mars.
Scholarship Rubens builds the picture as one continuous forward lunge, the figures overlapping in a Baroque cascade, the paint free and rapid for so large a canvas. Warm flesh and armour are set against the black of Europe and the storm, so the eye is pulled between the god's advance and the continent's grief.
An allegory of war — Rubens's own explanation
Interpretations differ. What the artist documented, what museums and scholars propose, and later or speculative theories are marked and kept separate.
The letter to Justus Sustermans
Rubens described the picture in detail in a 1638 letter to the painter Justus Sustermans, who looked after Medici business. He identified the figures: Mars leaving the open Temple of Janus (which by Roman custom stood closed in peacetime); Venus and Cupids trying and failing to restrain him; the Fury Alecto with a torch; monsters standing for Pestilence and Famine; a stricken woman with a broken lute for ‘Harmony, incompatible with the discord of War’; a mother and child for fertility and charity destroyed; a man under Mars's feet for the trampling of learning and the arts.
The mourning woman
Rubens wrote that the grief-stricken figure in black with a torn veil is Europe, ‘afflicted for so many years by plunder, outrage and misery’ — a direct reference to the Thirty Years' War then devastating the continent.
History & provenance
The painting was sent to Florence for the Medici in 1638 and has been in the grand-ducal collections — now the Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti — ever since.
Sources
- Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence — collection entry for Rubens, ‘Le conseguenze della guerra’ (1637–38)
- Rubens's letter to Justus Sustermans, 12 March 1638 (translated in R. S. Magurn, ‘The Letters of Peter Paul Rubens’, 1955)
Frequently asked
Does Consequences of War show a real place?
No. It is a mythological allegory, not a topographical view. The one building in it, the open Temple of Janus at the left, is a Roman symbol of wartime, not a surviving structure. Its subject is Europe as a whole during the Thirty Years' War.
How do we know what the figures mean?
Rubens explained them himself in a 1638 letter to the painter Justus Sustermans: Mars, Venus, the Fury Alecto, Pestilence and Famine, a woman with a broken lute for Harmony, and a mourning figure of Europe.
Who is the woman in black?
Europe, according to Rubens, ‘afflicted for so many years by plunder, outrage and misery’ — a direct reference to the war then devastating the continent.
When and for whom was it painted?
In 1637–38, for Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, near the end of Rubens's life.
Where is the painting now?
In the Galleria Palatina of the Palazzo Pitti, Florence.
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