Giorgione's lost Rape of Europe is known only through a mid-seventeenth century copy by Teniers, and this Italian painting, made after the Teniers. Not surprisingly, Giorgione treats the rape as a pastoral idyll. Titian later transformed it into a sea pastoral, imitating the new maritime pastoral cranked out by humanist poets seeking to invent new forms of pastoral poetry. Most mythological rapes take place in idyllic pastoral settings and are seen in classical literature more as romances.
