(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)