ART THAT TELLS STORIES : RUBENS'S SERIES FOR A QUEEN

DEITIES AND MONSTERS PORTRAY THE FIRST PART OF MARIE DE MEDICIS'S TURBULENT LIFE.* 

 *Queen mother and regent 1610-1616 / disgrace, 1616 / return to a degree of power, 1621-1630 / Final disgrace and exile, 1631-1643. Rubens's series, 1624-1626.  

For more on her story, please click here and here.

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Explain to the children that nudity is the clothing of the gods, that the figures are superhuman and imaginary and that corpulence shows prosperity. 

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For the very young: a feisty queen, a prince who is mostly ignored (and will take his revenge), princesses and monsters

Elisabeth Rawson

"The monster is the bad guy whom the queen defeated."

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 through the Revolution. Half a century later a very different elite adopted it until the turn of the 19th century: Please scroll down.

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:

Julian Debure

The Louvre shows works made before 1848. For creation after that date, visit the Musée d'Orsay.* 

*Choosing the date of the first conscious working-class insurrection would be unlikely to 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.  

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Next,

Snapshots for adults