Flanders and France

  • both catholic

  • flanders: modern day belgium

Flanders

Rubens

  • diplomat, scholar, art collector

  • permanent painter of the spanish governers (flander was spanish territory)

  • studied art in spain and italy

  • style:

    • fleshy bodies, influence from michelangelo

    • color: venice

    • lighting: caravaggio

Raising of the Cross by Ruben

  • 3 panel oil painting

  • dramatic lighting that spotlight effect: caravaggio

  • color: venice

  • drama:

  • diagonal lines

  • monarchy + art = propaganda

    • rulers are legitimized

  • Marie de Medici is a foreigner and her husband dies

    → commissions ruben to legitimize her rule

  • Marie smack in the center (important person)

  • Personified France as the soldier behind Henri

  • has the Gods behind her as their blessing

  • strong diagonal

  • code of arms: oranges → the medici family!

  • poseidon and his daughters in the ocean

  • spotlit female figures

  • stylized standards of Ruben: curvy female nudes

    • popular culture

  • not the most attractive, but Ruben knew what was beautiful

  • french monarch consolidates power through Ruben

  • leads to french academy of art is established, which later replaces italia

  • strong diagonal

  • pillar in the back: stability, well educated knowing the classics

  • had a sword for power

  • proud of his legs cause he was a ballet dancer

  • was 5’4” so he wore heels

  • moves to Versaille and noble men follow him, and each of them had a job

    • ex: wipe his nose when he sneezes

    → nobility leaves and runs away cause he’s too controlling

architecture

  • medici palace style: rough to smooth and decorated

  • beauty is mathematical and logical

  • Parterres: gardens of versailles

    • got less complex as you went further away from palace

  • artists respond by making free flowing gardens vs restricted and meticoulously kept garden

  • each arch is matching the mirror

  • sparkling dazzlinng!

  • very classicicising

  • classical world: pillars

  • St John is writing the book of Revelations

  • zigzag landscape

  • zigzag landscape

  • referred to as Claude