GLOIRE DE LA CHAIR (LA)

LES PORTRAITS D’HÉLÈNE FOURMENT, PIERRE-PAUL RUBENS - COLLECTION PALETTES

of JAUBERT Alain

FRANCE, 1995, 00:30:00

Production : SAADOUN Paul, PALETTE PRODUCTIONS, PAINI Dominique, MUSEE DU LOUVRE, LA SEPT-ARTE, REUNION DES MUSEES NATIONAUX, MUSEE D'ORSAY
Collection : Musée du Louvre
Genre : Documentary
Keyword : Allegory, Art, Body, Louvre Museum, Painting, Portrait

Summary :
Choosing key-works in the imaginary of the Western culture, the series called “Palettes” tells in each episode the story of a different painting. In a word, it tells the genealogy of the painting. For a painting has its ancestors and its descendants. A double technical and philosophical knowledge, fed on by a long tradition, gave birth to the painting. And the painting itself gave birth, year after year, to a multitude of other images…
Assuming the idea that the deep meaning of a painting is conveyed by the choice of colours and themes, we dissect the canvas from its most visible composition to its deepest significance.


Rubens, at the age of 53, was a widow and got married with a 16-year-old girl, Hélène Fourment. In the two portraits you can find at the Louvre museum ("Hélène Fourment au carrosse" (Hélène Fourment in coach), "Hélène Fourment avec ses deux enfants" (Hélène Fourment and two of her children)), she appears superbly dressed, in the splendour of her ample body. In the painting "La petite Pelisse de Vienne"(Woman in the pelisse), in which she holds her ample breast, one can imagine what could be the other nudes by Rubens. It is the opportunity to wonder about the allegories of the flesh of the Baroque period.

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