Birth of Adonis

Discussion

FROM THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART’S CATALOG

With tiny hands outstretched, the infant Adonis emerges from a prominent tree. Benedetto Montagna depicts the babe as if miraculously extracted from the bark in the manner of Eve’s creation from Adam’s side. But close attention to the sinuous trunk reveals Adonis to be actually born of a wooden womb. His mother Myrrah, after conceiving incestuously, pleaded that the gods deny her both life and death for her crime: she was thus transformed into a tree. Often moralized for later Christian audiences, tales such as this from Ovid’s popular Metamorphoses warned the viewer against following taboo desires.

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