When I was last in Paris, I noticed a rather remarkable painting in the extensive French collection upstairs at the Louvre: Vénus, l’Hymen et l’Amour. The artist is Pierre-Paul Prud’hon (1758-1823) who seems to have had a refined sense of the allegoric. (He also painted the rather more famous Love and Friendship.)

The most obvious interpretation of the painting, the flat interpretation, is that here Love, Marriage and Desire are together. The Louvre website observes: “Cette allégorie propose une idéale réconciliation entre union légitime et plaisir.”

However, there is a subtle irony for which I hold Prud’hon entirely responsible. The half-smiles on each face, and the posed ‘family portraiture’ style of the painting suggest that as soon as Prud’hon puts down his brush, the youngster will flee, and Hymen and Venus will depart for their separate lives.

Of course, that is scarcely how life should be. One is reminded of that epigrammatic quote from Dr Zhivago:

Love is not weakness. It is strong. Only the sacrament of marriage can contain it.

— Boris Pasternak

It is worth remembering that while art can portray Beauty, it has a much harder time at Truth. But as long as we are not looking to art to instruct us, but rather to enlighten us, we will emerge unscathed from its pleasures.

I mention this because there was some comment about a few of the Orthodox hymns to which I linked yesterday, some of which were not in accordance with Scripture. As long as we are looking for them to provide us with beauty, not truth, I think it right to praise God for them.

Incidentally, I note that police have recovered one of Edvard Munch’s paintings Scream; it will be returned to the Munch Museum in Oslo whence it was stolen. (The other Scream was also stolen from the Oslo National Gallery and was also recovered.)