Peter Paul Rubens, Arrival (or Disembarkation) of Marie de Medici at Marseilles , 1621–25, oil on canvas, 394 × 295 cm, (Musée du Louvre, Paris). https://web.archive.org/web/20140215033003/http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/arrival-of-marie-de-medici-at-marseilles-medici-cycle.html, CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. The poverty of his subject was utterly transcended; this is pure painting, nothing but painting. The creation of a cycle of tapestries had, in a However, the marriage was not a happy one as King Henry IV was something of a lothario who cheated on Marie as he had done in his previous marriage. Consider, for example, the Disembarkation at Marseilles, where everyone has eyes only for the voluptuous Naiads, to the disadvantage of the queen who is being received with open arms by France”. Peter Paul Rubens, Arrival (or Disembarkation) of Marie de Medici at Marseilles, 1621–25, oil on canvas, 394 × 295 cm, (Musée du Louvre, Paris). Rubens nevertheless contrived to render her portrait agreeable. Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker provide a description, historical perspective, and analysis of Peter Paul Rubens’s Arrival (or Disembarkation) of Marie de Medici at Marseilles. These qualities were essential; Rubens' international renown depended on his success in this formidable commission. It had required all of Rubens' imaginative resources and natural verve to ennoble and illustrate the relatively colourless circumstances of the Queen Mother's life. The royal couple become Olympian deities in The Meeting of Marie de Médicis and Henri IV at Lyon, while The Fate Spinning Marie's Destiny and The Triumph of Truth became pretexts for a proliferation of female convexity. The painting is a cacophony of colour and movement; red and gold dominate the canvas, every figure is moving and trumpets add an element of ceremonious sound. All Rights Reserved. Peter Paul Rubens, Arrival (or Disembarkation) of Marie de Medici at Marseilles, 1621–25, oil on canvas, 394 × 295 cm, (Musée du Louvre, Paris).

The overall set of artworks in known as the Marie de' Medici Cycle and this particularly painting is the sixth iteration. Disembarkation at Marseilles is one of 24 canvases that comprise the Medici Cycle, commissioned for the home of Marie de Medici, the Palais du Luxembourg (which now houses the French Senate and which she called the Palais Medici), the cycle loosely depicts the life of Marie de Medici. The entire commission was completed in only three years. Thanks to his organisational capacities, Rubens could meet demand and revolutionise the problem of large-scale pictorial decoration. Start Date: 1621. She wished him to decorate one of the galleries of the newly built Palais de Luxembourg with 24 monumental paintings commemorating episodes in the lives of herself and her renowned husband. All Rights Reserved. His customary contrasts are at work in the playful opposition of gleaming cuirasses and lusty bodies, fragile silks and the rugged hulls of dreadnoughts. uneventful royal life. “He [Rubens] surrounded her [Marie de’ Medici] with such a wealth of appurtenances that at every moment she was very nearly pushed into the background. To the left, the arms of the Medici can be seen above an arched structure, where a Knight of Malta stands in all of his regalia. She wished him to decorate one of the galleries of the This infuriated Marie so much so that she invited his ex-wife back into France. The disembarkation at marseilles analysis essay. Marie was the granddaughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, the daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and the Archduchess of Austria. Giving epic treatment to this biographical subject, Rubens was also able to give free rein to his fertile invention.