A survey of Poussin's representations of women makes it clear that he does not, as is often inaccurately affirmed even today, depict ‘the best aspects of ancient, pagan civilization [in] a coherent whole in art’. The beauty of his paintings, his deployment of their colors, boldly or delicately orchestrated as required, his carefully coordinated figures, spun out in rigorous yet lovely compositional structures, beguile us into imagining that his subjects, like his pictorial constructions, are broadly uplifting. In the face of his pictures’ attractiveness, we have to remind ourselves that his subjects are so often destructive. In his presentation of scenes of rape, war, injustice, and revenge, Poussin aims chiefly to present dramatic narratives that engage the viewer in thoughtful reflection on human conflict. He wrote to Chantelou in 1648 that he would like to illustrate ‘the most distressing tricks of Fortune ever inflicted on man’. These paintings, Poussin said, ‘would remind people of the moral strength and wisdom they must develop in order to be able to remain steadfast and resolute in the face of the very worst which that blind madwoman can do to them’. He never made these pictures, but many of his finished works easily could be imagined as part of such a series, canvases in which protagonists are tested by the ill will of others (as is the good mother in the Judgment of Solomon—Fig. 6.8) or by the forces of nature (as are both lovers in Pyramus and Thisbe—Figs. 5.4, 5.5).