Something terrible happened: a brutal interruption of love, Pluto’s abduction of Proserpine to the Realm of Darkness. Did this mean, then, a return to the shadows of the previous paintings where the artist, like Orpheus, woefully sought his lost Eurydice? As the two contrasting myths themselves indicate, the experience was different, this time: Proserpine was not lost to the darkness, but became its queen for half a year, returning to Earth for the remaining half to bring her luminous force of life.

Whenever I paint the ‘Creation’, it is Eve, not Adam to appear in my dreams. Who can say whether it was a male or female body, or both,which issued from the hand of God? But He gave life to the Soul before He gave life to the Body, and the Soul is no doubt female because, when the Spirit impregnates her, she becomes a bearer of new creatures.