Music against death · Love, gaze and loss

Orpheus descends to the Underworld to bring Eurydice back, but a look returned too soon transforms the almost accomplished deliverance into definitive separation.

Orpheus has music capable of soothing animals, moving stones and suspending the sentences of the dead. After the death of Eurydice, bitten by a snake, he descends into the kingdom of Hades. His song convinces Pluto and Proserpina to return the young woman to one condition: Orpheus must not turn around before reaching the light. A few steps from the exit, doubt or love prevails and Eurydice disappears a second time. Poussin inscribes the first death in a vast landscape where the catastrophe remains almost invisible. A few steps from the exit, doubt or love prevails and Eurydice disappears a second time. Poussin inscribes the first death in a vast landscape where the catastrophe remains almost invisible. Jan Brueghel unfolds the Underworld around the musician. Rubens places the first death in a vast landscape where the catastrophe remains almost invisible. A few steps from the exit, doubt or love prevails and Eurydice disappears a second time. Poussin inscribes the first death in a vast landscape where the catastrophe remains almost invisible. A few steps from the exit, doubt or love prevails and Eurydice disappears a second time. Poussin inscribes the first death in a vast walk veiled in silence and mist. The selection "Paintings of Orpheus and Eurydice" notably compares Landscape with Orpheus and Eurydice - Nicolas Poussin and Orpheus in the Underworld - Jan Brueghel the Elder. His reading favors movement.

The myth of Orpheus affirms the power of art while giving it a limit: singing opens the Underworld, but cannot abolish time or doubt.