(piano music playing)
Steven: We're in the National
Gallery of Washington, D.C.,
and we're looking at Franรงois Boucher's
Venus Consoling Love. This
is a painting that probably
dates to 1751 and it's a
confection. Look at it.
Beth: It is. We see Venus
occupying a diagonal line
in the center of the canvas.
Steven: Which reminds us
that it comes out of the
Beth: Baroque
Beth: Yeah, lovely nude Venus
who has got her left arm
coming across her body and
trying to steal all the
arrows from Cupid, so he can't ...
Steven: ... do mischief ...
Beth: Do mischief making
people fall in love.
Steven: The arrow, the spark
of desire that he wields.
Beth: Yeah and there's sorts
of soft greens and blues
and pinks that we associate
with the Rococo style.
Steven: There's a willingness
to sort of suspend belief
and to create a kind of
fantasy, to create a kind of
impossible dream-like space.
Look at this landscape.
It's in and out of focus.
It dissolves. We have this
large tree here in of the
center, which is slightly to the
right background, but then
the distant trees as well
and ... and there's no
real space in between them.
Beth: No, that's not a
real construction of space.
Steven: No, not at all.
Beth: It's a kind of evoking
of nature and landscape.
Steven: It's meant to be a kind of playful
indulgent expression of
wealth thinned of emotion
and of love and desire.
Beth: And of course,
this was commissioned by
Madame de Pompadour?
Steven: ... who was the
mistress of the king
and there's even some
suggestion that it was possibly
her that posed for Venus,
although I think ...
Beth: It's just that she's
a very idealized woman.
Steven: Yeah, I think
that's probably true,
but it speaks a lot to ... to
the interest of the moment.
You know, this is a period
before the French Revolution,
where painting was concerned
with ... with emotion, was
concerned with the kind
of indulgence ... was
concerned with other
pleasures of the body.
(piano music playing)