In "Consequences of War", painter Peter Paul Rubens created a commentary on the Thirty Years' War. The allegorical painting shows the Roman god Mars at the centre, charging forward with shield and sword, under his feet a book and a drawing symbolizing how the arts and letters are forgotten and destroyed in the chaos and violence of war. Venus, the Roman goddess of love (and Mars' mistress) with Cupids, is trying to stop him, but fails to do so as the fury Alekto, the incarnation of anger, drags Mars on to his destructive purpose with a torch held high.
Pestilence and Famine accompany Alekto, while a series of figures are trampled under their feet, from a woman with a broken lute representing Harmony, to a mother and a child, symbols of Maternity and Charity and a man with an instrument, an architect. On the left of the scene, a dishevelled woman symbolising Europe throws her arms up in distress at the prospect of war, her eyes sore from crying, behind her the doors of the Temple of Janus are left ajar (in Ancient Rome, the Temple of Janus would be closed to indicate times of peace while an open door denoted war).
Rubens painted "Consequences of War" between 1638 and 1639 in response to the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), but dates aren't important as whenever and wherever there is a war, the consequences are always the same as the ones seen in this allegorical painting.
Sparked by uncontrollable rage, thirst for power and expansion, fostered by anger and rivalry, conflicts expand trampling everything and everybody under their feet. Rubens knew this well because he wasn't only a painter, but a diplomat. He had lobbied for the end of the war and the painting showed his desire for peace.
The densely populated painting, could be perfectly used to describe the current conflict in Ukraine: like Mars, the Russian invasion is trampling on the creative arts and on women and children as well. As seen in a previous post, last week a Russian airstrike hit the children's and maternity hospital in Mariupol. Among the pictures that showed the destruction we saw heavily pregnant women carried out on stretchers, others walking out of the hospital with blood on their faces and clothes.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated the hospital was a target because there were no patients in it, as it had been overtaken by far-right radical fighters who were using it as a base. Photographs from the aftermath told a different story, though.
Mariana Vishegirskaya, a Ukrainian beauty blogger who till the end of February posted images of her life in Mariupol sharing happy moments on her Instagram page, was pictured in her pyjamas as she fled from Hospital No 3 in Mariupol, her face covered in blood. She gave birth to a girl the day after the bombing, but Russian propaganda claimed she faked her injuries and that she was a "crisis actor". The Russian embassy in London posted indeed a tweet claiming the blogger played the roles of two victims and that the pictures was taken by a propagandist (the pictures at the Mariupol maternity hospital were taken by Associate Press photographers Mstyslav Chernov and Evgeniy Maloletka, and not by "propagandists"). As a consequence, she was targeted by online abuse, with trolls accusing her she was getting "paid" for the "photoshoot".
Then yesterday there were tragic news about the young pregnant woman who was photographed on a stretcher holding her belly. Her image circled the world in the last few days: her pale skin covered in dust contrasted with the red strawberry blanket under her body. She was carried to a hospital in south-east Ukraine, but she and her baby both died. Her name remained unknown as medics didn't manage to note it down before her husband and father came to take away her body.
It is hard to look at these images and not think about other images of pregnancies we are more accustomed to - think Rihanna looking radiant at runway shows during Paris Fashion Week in her daring maternity looks, such as her black lingerie and sheer lace slip matched with patent boots seen at the Dior runway (View this photo) at the beginning of March.
We give for granted that in 2022 every woman should have the right to be treated with respect and dignity during labour and child birth, but, like Rubens showed us, in a war Maternity gets trampled by Mars, and in our dark times, Maternity gets tragically trampled by bombs and trolls.
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