Minion of fate, a man generously gifted with everything that nature can give, that’s who Rubens is. Peter Paul was versatilely gifted, had a great appearance, a talent to grab everything on the fly, a tenacious memory that allowed him to be one of the most educated people of his time. He spoke 6 languages, was well versed in music, poetry and other forms of art, had the talent of a brilliant diplomat. In addition, he was unusually lucky.
But the greatest glory in time and space to Rubens was ensured by the genius of an unsurpassed artist.
Titanium
The sorcerer, “the king of artists, the artist of kings” - what epithets have not been awarded to contemporaries of this talented and surprisingly prolific genius of the Baroque era. An interesting master of painting by Rubens, whose paintings adorn all the museums of the world, made the boring era of the rule of the Duke of Albus interesting and attractive.
He was magnificent in all genres - portrait, historical and religious canvases, landscape, canvases on mythological subjects - everything was subject to him, in everything he reached the heights.
Amazing fecundity
The artist left the descendants of thousands of paintings signed by him, which indicates his capacity for work and the number of talented students. There are many paintings in all genres, including those written on well-known subjects from Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome. He wrote Prometheus and the Amazons, tipsy Dionysus and Silenus, the stories of the abduction of Ganymede and the daughters of Leucippus, Calydon hunting and the head of Medusa and the feast of the Roman goddess of love - Venus. The artist knew mythology very well. Rubens captured a lot of plots, the paintings of which are the best illustrations for ancient tales of the Mediterranean.
The fullness of the heroes of Rubens
True, the heroes of the artist’s paintings that are full of health sometimes differ from the slender boys and girls depicted in ancient amphoras, and the concept of “beautiful” in him is inextricably linked with fatness. Here is the son of Tsar Troy, Ganymede, known for his extraordinary beauty, because of which Zeus in the form of an eagle abducted him and made him a cupbearer, so that he would always have a fairy-tale prince in front of his eyes, on the canvas of Rubens more like a fat overgrown, frightened to blue. The great Flemish, as a rule, has several works devoted to one plot. On one of them, the legendary son of Troy is not bad at all, but the eagle on all canvases is simply magnificent. So the beauty of Perseus in the picture is somewhat peculiar. But this, of course, is a private opinion. Obviously, Rubens least of all wanted to draw "prettiness."
One of the most famous ancient Greek heroes
The painting "Andromeda and Perseus" is a masterpiece of world painting. Her plot is very popular. Perseus, who killed Medusa Gorgon, the most terrible and omnipotent of the three serpent-haired daughters of the two sea deities Forky and Keto, is even known to people who are far from mythology. The ability of the Gorgon killed by the hero to turn into stone all living things, without exaggeration, is familiar to everyone and everyone. We were talking about it because right in the center of the picture the severed head of the monster was carefully painted out, attached to the surface of the mirror shield donated by the hero Athena Pallas to carry out precisely this feat - the killing of Medusa. In general, the Olympic gods very well equipped the great son Danai, who gave birth to him from Zeus. The plot of the appearance of the hero in the world is also well known. The king of Argos, Acrisius, learning that he would die at the hands of his grandson, hid his daughter Danai in the dungeon. But you cannot hide from the thunderer - he leaked to his beloved in the form of a golden rain.
Whole world
So, on the canvas "Andromeda and Perseus" all the armor - gifts of the gods are very meticulously depicted. True, the data differ, who gave what specifically, but the main version is as follows. Hades gave the invisible hat. Hermes, the messenger of the gods, presented his winged sandals and showed the hero the way. The god of fire - the blacksmith Hephaestus - gave a sharp, crooked sword, since only this weapon could cut through the skin of Medusa, all covered with scales. The painting also shows Pegasus, born from the body of the murdered Gorgon Medusa. According to the plot of the myth, Perseus freed Andromeda without the help of a winged horse. But the artist, as it were, characterizes the great hero, presenting to the viewer evidence of his great deeds.
I must say that the myth "Perseus and Andromeda" is very popular among writers, poets and artists, but it is precisely Rubens’s canvas that immediately appears before his eyes at the mention of this pair.
The essence of the story
The plot of the picture is as follows. The great hero of Greece, the founder of Mycenae, the future center of Greek civilization, flew over the sea and saw a beautiful girl chained to a rock, with an expression of horror on her face. Going down, Perseus learned that Andromeda, and it was she, the daughter of the Ethiopian arrogant queen Cassiopeia and King Kephei, was ordered to sacrifice a sea monster sent by Poseidon to punish the girl's mother for her long tongue. Cassiopeia was very proud of the beauty of her daughter and claimed that she overshadows the Nereids, the children of the sea god Nereus. The tsarina forgot that the Olympians are vindictive and cannot stand the slightest competition. A terrible giant fish began to devastate the country regularly. The oracle said that the monster should be given to Andromeda, and the troubles will stop.
Zeus's son hurries to the rescue
But Perseus decided otherwise, he cut the shackles of Hephaestus’s sword and sent the girl to the beach, after asking the beauties who were standing there right away whether they would give Andromeda his wife if the monster was killed. Having received consent, he rushed towards fate. The battle was terrible, the winged sandals were wet, the sword did not help, but Perseus rescued the head of Medusa . He showed it to the fish, and it petrified, turning into a coastal rock. The hero returned to the shore to the narrowed one. Andromeda and Perseus lived happily ever after. She bore him seven children: the beautiful Gorgofon and 6 sons, the eldest of whom Persus became the ancestor of the Persian people, and the youngest Electrion - the father of Alkmena, mother of Hercules. That is, the greatest hero of Ancient Greece is Perseus's great-grandson. There is no need to talk about the role of Zeus in this whole story - he was the father of both Perseus and Heracles.
“And now, beauty girl, I want to marry you ...”
The description of the Rubens painting can be started by indicating the exact moment of this touching story - the winner returns to the embarrassed and happy lover who just so happily escaped death. The picture has everything - and the solemnity of the moment (the goddess of victory Nick puts his helmet on the hero), and the joy of meeting the lovers over the head of the defeated monster. Cheerful angels symbolize the joy and gratitude of all the Ethiopian people freed from adversity, who, according to legend, dumped a noisy crowd on the seashore. You can endlessly talk about the artist’s palette, which astounds viewers of the 21st century, just like contemporaries. Hundreds of books are written about his mastery and mastery of his brush, about his methods of applying paints to canvas, love of life pouring from his canvases.
Top of creativity
“Andromeda and Perseus” is the ingenious canvas of the creator of the Baroque school, an exciting, vibrant, life-affirming style of artistic expression. Only great creators, and not so many, become the founders of some direction in art. Peter Paul Rubens perfectly mastered the power of plastic imagination, the dynamism of forms and rhythms. In his works, the decorative beginning triumphed. All this together formed the basis of his work. In his work Perseus and Andromeda, Rubens showed that he had reached the peaks that the three previous generations of the masters of his homeland of Flanders had sought, namely the merger of the great classical tradition of the masters of Ancient Greece and Rome, which the Renaissance revived, with the realism of the masters of South Netherlands (Flemish ) School of painting.
Realism is the foundation of creativity
1577–1640 - years of the life of a brilliant artist. Rubens wrote his indisputable masterpiece "Perseus and Andromeda" in 1620-1621, that is, as a mature master, with his recognizable manner of writing at first sight. And the realism of the great Flemish made the Greek myth sound anew. He brought heroes to life. And Perseus looks like a real man who is able to protect his beloved without winged sandals, and Andromeda does not look like an Ethiopian dark-skinned princess, but a Flemish girl - a blond woman, with a bright blush, with beautiful blond hair that Rubens managed so well. About this his manner, which one author called the "riddle of Valers", successfully solved by the master. This means that Perseus and Andromeda is a picture in which Peter Paul used glaze. This is a technique that results in a deep iridescent color. This happens due to the application of translucent paints of the same tone on the main color.
Great color scheme
In this picture, a big role was played by the contrast of the hero’s metallic dark armor with the girl’s delicate naked body - she is defenseless, he can protect. So captured the moment of the meeting of heroes on the canvas of Rubens "Perseus and Andromeda." The description of the picture can be completed with words about the free confident manner of writing by the great artist and the beautiful rich palette of the canvas. Local contrasting spots scattered throughout the picture - burgundy, blue, brown - are combined into a common color flow. The bright pink-pearl body of the beauty stands out and dominates in it. The poet John Richards owns such lines inspired by this picture: "... and the dark carapace of the son of Danai sets off the sweet-snowy body ...". The best version of this immortal work is kept in the Hermitage.