RUBENS USES DEITIES TO PORTRAY THE TURBULENT LIFE OF A QUEEN.* FOR THE REAL STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE AND HERE
*Marie de Medici, regent 1610-1616, disgrace, return to a degree of power, 1621-1630. Series, 1624-1626.
Explain that nudity is the clothing of the gods, that the figures are superhuman and imaginary and that corpulence shows prosperity.
- For little children: a feisty queen, a prince, princesses and monsters
 |
| Elisabeth Rawson |
- For teens, political messages...
Claude Abron
"The tots imply that the queen may rebel if the king does not do what she asks."
These paintings link rulers and the nobility with the gods, a practice that dominated the arts from the early 16th century until the end of the Revolution, and adopted by a new elite, until the early 20th.
Marie Triumphant (The Victory at Julich), by Rubens, 1624
To pursue the theme without getting lost in the immense museum, please click on the link at the end of the page.
- Using Romans (like mythology) glorifies the Revolution.
PHOTO
- Toward 1820-1830, humble sailors with the bodies of gods and a goddess who leads the people in seizing a barricade, are artistically and politically revolutionary:
.jpg)
 |
Julian Debure |
The Louvre shows works made before 1848. For creation after that date, visit the Musée d'Orsay.*
*Choosing as cut-off date that of the first conscious working-class insurrection could not happen today, with the rightward swing in viewing the past. But the Musée d'Orsay was planned in 1973.
The use of mythology continued:
- The Industrial Revolution brings a capitalist elite, which is much less sophisticated than the nobility it defeats. It feels culturally inferior so copies their ways, including art that associates it with the gods.
 |
| Building on the corner of rues Saint-Denis and Réaumur, in north central Paris |
- Soon after La Commune (in 1871), the Impressionnistes paint people who are young, handsome, happy and ordinary. That seems subversive and incites fury. But a generation later, the new rulers have forgotten the Commune and feel themselves rooted. They jettison the nobles' code and adopt their own.
Dance at the Moulin de la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876, Musée d'Orsay / zoom
Such idealized everyday people take the deities' place. They announce our ads.
# # #
The Louvre presents dramatic works next to those iconic paintings. When he saw this one an eight-year-old cried out...
Dante's barque,1822
"Mommy, look at the vampire!"
"That's the best part of my painting!,"
the artist had said.
-- Eugène Delacroix, age 26
* * *
Next,
No comments:
Post a Comment