The Three Graces, by Peter Paul Rubens.

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Channels: European ArtPaintingSpanish Language
Themes: Learning to Look

Alejandro Vergara, Chief Curator of Flemish and Northern School Paintings comments the work The three graces of Peter Paul Rubens.

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00:00:12 This is another of the works by the artist that centres on the theme of love

00:00:17 and which were so characteristic of his late period.

00:00:20 It is not known exactly when this work was painted or why.

00:00:23 We do know that it was in the artist’s possession on his death

00:00:26 and that representatives of the Spanish king purchased it from Rubens’ heirs.

00:00:31 It is thus a private painting

00:00:32 and one undoubtedly connected with Rubens’ marriage in 1630 to Helena Fourment,

00:00:40 the young woman with whom he was so profoundly in love for the last ten years of his life.

00:00:44 The three Graces constitute

00:00:49 a relatively minor myth within classical mythology.

00:00:52 These three figures are connected with the concepts of beauty and love

00:00:58 and are often depicted accompanying Venus to weddings, for example.

00:01:03 They thus represent the gifts that the goddess

00:01:07 could make to the couple about to be married.

00:01:12 On occasions Rubens would refer to something that he had encountered,

00:01:18 such as a work of classical art or some characteristic of it, saying

00:01:23 “not even the Graces could have made it more beautiful”.

00:01:26 He thus identified them with the gift or quality of beauty and the capacity to create it.

00:01:32 There is a painting by the artist in a Florentine collection

00:01:36 in which the god Mars is destroying all the good and positive things in life,

00:01:41 including a small drawing of the Graces.

00:01:45 Once again they can be seen as associated with the beauty of life that events such as war destroy.

00:01:50 When Rubens painted The Three Graces he was celebrating the beautiful aspect of life,

00:01:55 a beauty that he associated with love given that these figures traditionally accompany Venus.

00:01:59 He was undoubtedly inspired to do so by the happiness that he felt at this period

00:02:05 in relation to his marriage to Helena Fourment around the end of 1630.