II.5.4. ALLEGORY, NOBLES' RESPONSE TO RISING CAPITALISTS

MENU: 2.5.3. Allegory: nobles vs. new captalists

ALLEGORIES LINK NOBLES TO FIGURES OF ANTIQUITY, FOR AN ESSENCE THAT UPSTARTS CANNOT MATCH

Diane de Poitiers, a member of the top nobility and royal favorite, shows her importance through nudity, clothing of the gods. 

(Toward 1550)

            Diane de Poitiers as Diana, Goddess of the Hunt, anonymous / zoom

Biblical figures are clothed, but have the bodies and faces of gods.

The Reconciliation of Jacob and Ésaü by Arnould De Vuez toward 1678, Baulme Fine Arts

Royals identify with those personnages: 

Philip of France in Costume of Antiquity by Jean Nocret, toward 1650 / zoom; Maurice Leloir in Le Roy-Soleil by T. Cahu, 1931

Using the gods for primacy and power

• Real-life stories and political messages

• Rubens's decor for a queen

• A plea for peace and a threat of revolt

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Real-life stories and political messages

REAL-LIFE STORIES AND POLITICAL MESSAGES

ALLEGORIES NARRATE THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PRINCES AND NOBLES, AS MYTHOLOGY AND THE HEBREW BIBLE TELL THOSE OF HEROES OF ANTIQUITY 

Works express a coded message:  

Le Bain de Diane by Francois Clouet, court painter, toward 1565 / zoom with analysis.

The three goddesses were real rivals, Catherine de Medici (with the black cloth as the widow of Henri II), Diane de Poitiers, Henri's favorite (her colors, black and white) and Marie de Guise (Scottish, as shown by the thistle, queen after Henri's death and member of the hostile, Catholic Guise clan). The satyres are Guise leaders. The horseman is a hunter with his dog, who will kill them.  

The painting was commissioned by a Protestant nobleman at the court against Catholic rivals, a few years before the massacre of Protestants by Catholics. 

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The style characterizes mansions and chateaux: 

• The mansion of the Minister of Finance (toward 1630):

  Zoom

The Hôtel de Sully, in front of the first royal place (place des Vosges). 

             

• Mantels, the most prestigious sites of glacial chateaux:

• At Écouen* Jacob sins, leaves, returns and is forgiven, like the owner** who offends Diane de Poitiers, leaves the court and eventually reconciles with the king.

*Now the Renaissance Museum, north of Paris.

**The Constable of Montmorency (1493-1567). 

La chasse d'Esau, museum publication

• At Condé en Brie (in Champagne) a god carries off a woman. The work alludes to the owner* making a married woman his mistress as Louis XIV had done with Madame de Montespan (before he knew of her visits to the witch) and imitates a Versailles statue.

*The Marquis de la Faye, private secretary to Louis XIV

Claude Abron

Château de Condé - Aymeri de Rochefort; Pluto enlève Prosperine by François Girardon, toward 1690, Versailles / zoom

Madame de Montespan

chose the story of Helen of Troy 

as decor for her chateau.

-- Athénaïs, the Real Queen of France by Lisa Hilton, 2002

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Rubens's decor for a queen

RUBENS'S DECOR FOR A QUEEN

THE LOUVRE DEVOTES AN ENTIRE ROOM TO THE MOST EXUBERANT PROPAGANDA EVER IMAGINED

Marie de Medici returns to power* and as a true Medici, hires the time's leading painter to present her life as she wants it told.

*In 1621-1630. For the start of her story, please click.

The first modern biography is also the most famous use of allegory, with the 24 life-size paintings Rubens creates for her palace in 1624-1626.

Most visitors head to the publicized works, so you will have the huge room almost to yourself. 

       La Régente militante. La Victoire à Julich / zoom

 A white horse, symbol of royalty

How Marie might be remembered had she not lost her temper... .

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Background: the conflict between Marie and her son Louis XIII, who at age 15 takes power through an assassination (for that story, please click on the link above).

• Louis XIII, the teen-age prince. In 24 paintings he appears only seven times, and never in a commanding way. Marie wants to keep on ruling: 

         La Remise [Consignment] de la Régence à la Reine / zoom

Marie dominates. As he grows older Louis pretends to be retarded and almost all the courtiers ignore him. They regret that mistake for the rest of their lives, which might be short.

• The 14-year-old French and Spanish princesses, exchanged at the border

      L'Échange des princesses / zoom 

 The girl in white is Anne, Louis's bride.

If your little girl dreams of being a princess and marrying a prince, tell her she would never see her family again. Plus, as a foreign princess the court might think she was a spy (as Anne really was). 

A queen's sole path to influence: becoming regent should the king die and leave a son too young to rule. That was how both Marie and Anne came to exert Europe's most important regencies. 

• Dogs fill empty space 

   Le Couronnement de Marie de Medici à Saint-Denis le 13 mai , 1610 / zoom

• Monsters: Marie's enemies, neutralized or defeated

             Louis XIII atteint sa majorité [comes of age]/ zoom                             La Reine réconcilie avec son fils / zoom

Left out: the servant Leonora, the hustler Concini, Marie's banishment and imprisonment... (click if you haven't yet).

        L'Expulsion de Paris / zoom

The rejected sketch for the work on her disgrace.

The series is important for itself, for its influence...

• David studied The Coronation of Marie de Medici, shown above, before beginning his most famous work:

La Consecration de l'Emperor Napoléon I et le couronnement de l'Impératrice Josephine à la cathédrale de Notre-Dame le 2 décembre, 1804 by Jacques-Louis David / zoom

• The series' color and action influenced Eugène Delacroix, leader of the Romantics and creator of the most famous painting produced in France (please read on):

        La Mort de Sardanapolus by Eugène Delacroix, 1827 / zoom

...and for showing omissions

to the wished-for point of view.

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A plea for peace and a threat of revolt

A PLEA FOR PEACE AND A THREAT OF REVOLT

NOBLES' ART GLORIFIES WAR, BUT MARIE HAS RUBENS INSIST ON PEACE...

A caduceus (two serpents coiled around a baton) symbolizes the accord of opposites, so wisdom and harmony. In paintings where every detail is politically charged Rubens associates it with Marie alone.

-- Heroic Deeds and Mystic Figures by R.F. Miflin and R.E. Wolf, 1989,

analyzes the series in depth.

In the first work Mercury points the caduceus toward the line that joins the right hands of Apollo, Minerva and Marie with the abdomens of the Three Graces: Marie unites wisdom, culture and fertility, characteristics that fit her ardent opposition to Richelieu's demand for war.

     The Education of the Princess / zoom

One of the next paintings evokes the choice of entering or staying out of the Thirty Years' War (of 1618-1648):

The Meeting in Lyons / zoom 

• Louis carries his scepter like a musket and turns away from his mother, while his charming little brother, Gaston d'Orleans, looks up at her adoringly. Junior princes who led revolts legitimized them and when this work was painted, in 1626, Gaston had rebelled. The scene implies that should Louis refuse Marie's demand for peace, she might back him should he revolt again. (He would do so four more times.) 

 

• The intrepid queen had already escaped imprisonment and led two rebellions. So this was not an empty threat.

The king studied the paintings, had them explained to him and left without a word. They may have contributed to Marie's fall, but the main reason was an immense mistake... more here. 

End of this section.

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2.5.5.

The Church omits pagan decor...