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Sex Object 64 G eorge Shackelford, deputy director of the Kimbell Art Museum, answers our question: What is the most alluring and seductive piece in your hallowed museum's iconic collection? "Venus, goddess of love, might have been called the goddess of lovers. In a loveless marriage with Vulcan, she had affairs with Mars (three children, gods of terror, fear, and harmony), Mercury (one child, the ambiguous Hermaphroditos), Bacchus (one son, Priapus — don't go there), and Anchises, a mortal (who fathered her son Aeneas, Roman hero). As Poussin shows, she fell hard for the heartthrob Adonis, another mortal lover. In the painting, she is in the light while he's in shadow — foretelling his untimely death, gored by a wild boar. Venus wept for him — after all, she'd known him since he was a baby; drops of his blood, mingled with her tears, fell to the ground, and up sprang a flower — the very first Anemone." Nicolas Poussin's Venus and Adonis, circa 1628–1629, at the Kimbell Art Museum COLLECTION KIMBELL ART MUSEUM, FORT WORTH