"Landscape with Philemon and Baucis," Peter Paul Rubens, 1620-25.

Rubens (1577-1640) was the great master of Flemish Baroque art, whose name lives on in the term "rubenesque" when describing someone's figure. (Go look it up.)

This dramatic painting was originally to have been just a stormy landscape, but Rubens tweaked his plan to give us a scene out of Greek mythology.

In the story, Zeus and Hermes descended to earth and disguised themselves as beggars to test mankind's charity. In a town, they were turned away by every house except one, where an elderly couple named Philemon and Baucis lived. To punish the town, the two gods took the oldsters to a hill and then flooded the town, except for their house, which became an ornate temple. They remained as its keepers, and turned into intertwining trees when they died.

So while you have the torrent wiping away the town, you can also see the tiny figures of the gods and the old couple off to the right. I'd rather see them turning into trees myself...

From the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

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