Abstract

In examining the meaning of rape in Rubens’ painting of Proserpine, I consider its erotic context through a synthesizing of sources and methods to articulate it. The nuances which contribute to such an interpretation involve various methodological considerations, ranging from a social historical consideration of seventeenth-century views of rape, to an Ovidian and classical source study to reveal sexual ideologies which permeate in Rubens’ work. The “love hunt” is a theme which I identify to clarify my erotic interpretation for his painting. This identification demonstrates the ways in which hunting or chasing is made palatable in Rubens’ work through the dynamic of his female and male mythological subjects. It is in the codification of Rubens’ victims that I identify them as intentionally eroticized.