Vulcan Presenting Venus with Arms for Aeneas by Francois Boucher

Vulcan Presenting Venus with Arms for Aeneas, Francois Boucher, 1757,
Oil on Canvas, 321 x 320 cm, Musee du Louvre

Venus' husband, Vulcan, the god of fire and the forge crafted arms for Aeneas at her pleading for his battle with Turnus.  Virgil writes of Aeneas in 'The Aeneid', the son of the Trojan mortal Anchises and Venus, the goddess of beauty and erotic love.  Aeneas is bestowed with divine protection because of Venus. He is chosen to survive the siege of Troy and to lay the foundations in Italy for the glory of the Roman Empire. In the Aeneid, Aeneas’s fate as Rome’s founder propels the story forward and the sequence of events frequently conveys that Aeneas’s heroism is to be indebted as much to his legacy as to his own choices and deeds. Aeneas provides the medium for the fates to carry out its design.  Boucher utilizes his creamy brush strokes and rich colorization to bring to life the mythological history of the exchange of the armor made for Venus' son who is half mortal and half god.  Although this is a Rococo period work, the elements of the Baroque style are still evident in the dramatic triangles, implied diagonal lines criss crossing the canvas, and the bottom of the canvas appearing as if the viewer could step into this dreamy world of gods, goddesses, putti, and myth.

Diary Entry by Michelangelo c. 1546

Detail of 'Venus and Anchises, 1597-1600, Fresco, Farnese Gallery, Rome, Italy

 'Fierce burning for surpassing loveliness
need not be always harsh and deadly fault,
if with that heat the heart is made to melt 
in softness that a dart divine can pierce.
   Winged by the power of love, man wakes and soars,
nor is vain passion denied a loftier flight
as the first step to the creator's height,
to which the soul, unsated, seeks to rise.
   The love of which I speak aspires to climb; 
women are not like this, and it ill fits
a wise and manly heart to burn for them.
   One draws to heaven, the other to earth below,
one in the soul, one in the senses sits
and at things vile and worthless draws his bow.'


~Michelangelo (Probably for T.C.)


Annibale Carracci, The Farnese Gallery, Detail of 'Venus and Anchises, 1597-1600, The quotation on the footstool is from Virgil's Aeneid indicates the pair are illusionistic stone 'Atlas Figures' - In front of them are very fleshy figures  based on the Ignudi of Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling.

Buonarroti, M. (2007). Poems and letters (michelangelo). Penguin Classics.