(piano music) -We're in the musee du Louvre in Paris, and we're in an enormous
room which is completely filled with 24 huge paintings
by Peter Paul Rubens about the life of one woman. -Well, one very important woman, or at least she thought so. These were commissioned
by Marie de Medici, a member of the very wealthy and powerful Italian Medici family
who married Henry IV, the King of France. -And she hired Rubens,
one of the most important painters in Europe during
the Baroque period, to paint an elaborate
cycle of the triumphs of her life, and then
she put the series in her own mansion, in what is now the Luxembourg Gardens, just
south of the Louvre. Now this wasn't an easy
task, because although she was wealthy and she married a king, her life just wasn't that interesting. She had children, one
of them died in infancy. Her husband would ultimately
die, and she would become regent of France until her son was old enough to rule
himself, but besides that, there really wasn't enough
to fill 24 canvasses. -So Rubens was very
inventive, and elevated these moments of her life
by including mythological and allegorical figures
that gave a sense that her position as queen
was divinely ordained. -And we certainly see that
in the panel that shows Henry IV first gazing on
her face in a portrait. It's interesting, because in this case, we're looking at a painting of a man who's looking at a painting. -You can see that he's completely taken with the image of her. It looks as though he's about to say, be still my heart. He turns his body toward the portrait, his left hand is open,
a gesture of being awed. -But there's such elegance in the way he turns his body. It's such an expression
of the courtly manners of France in the 17th century. -Then it's funny, because
we're talking about Catholic Europe, but this
is filled with ancient Greek and Roman mythological figures. We see Zeus and his wife
Juno, also known as Hera. -And we can identify
them because of the eagle on Zeus' side who holds
a thunder bolt, and the peacock behind Hera. So you're right, we're
not seeing Christian references that speak to
the value of this couple, but rather this mythic
caste of characters. So Henry is taken by this
portrait of Marie de Medici, and the portrait is being
held aloft by Cupid, appropriately the god
we associate with love, Eros in Greek, and then
Hymen, the god of marriage. -And behind Henry is a
personification of France, also urging him forward, as though saying, do this for France. -So there's political
imperative here as well. This is not only a match
made of love, not only a match that has been
sanctified by the gods, but this is an important
political alliance as well. -Right, this is an
important moment for France. -And then we have this
marvelous landscape, which is quite low in the
composition, and we can see that there's been a
battle, and in the foreground the king has taken off
his helmet, he's put down his shield, we see
two puti who are playing with these, it is as
if the king is leaving behind war for love. -We have the sense of
wanting to leave everything behind for his great
love, for Marie de Medici. -Marie de Medici, in the
portrait, is quite formal. She's surrounded by this
glorious color, this very rich fabric, but she is
close to the picture plane, and looks rather straight
out, so there is a kind of flatness, whereas the king is in the process of movement. -In typical Baroque
fashion, the composition is structured using a
series of diagonal lines, so my eye starts at the
bottom with those two puti, leading up to Henry the IV the king, and the personification of France, across to the portrait,
which occupies the center of the painting, the god
of marriage, and then back up to Hera and Zeus. So there's a zig-zagging
that animates the entire composition, with that
portrait still in the center. -The complex pathways
that Rubens uses to lead our eye around this canvas is masterful. There are these little veniats. Look at the way the
personification of France touches so gently the
king's upper arm, and seems to be looking eagerly
at the portrait, almost as if she's whispering in his ear. Then look at the Cupid,
who looks back at the king's face to judge
his reaction, and seems so pleased with his admiration. -Or the Cupid below, who's playing with Henry's shield. -And looks directly out at us. -Very mischievously. -Rubens produced the
entire series within just a few years, but he was
also known to have an enormous workshop of assistants. Rubens would have laid
out the overall drawing, and would have likely been responsible for the hands, for the
faces, and presumably, for the representation of the king and Marie de Medici, but he
would have had lots of help with all that surround them. -It is so over-the-top. -The word ego doesn't even suffice. -Although it's important to remember that she is just acting as
a member of her class. (piano music)