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