The exterior of both wings closed depicts St. Christopher and the Hermit.
The hermit guides St. Christopher with a lantern. (Compare Rubens’s
St. Christopher to the Farnese Hercules.) The theme of the triptych
is “Christ-bearing.”
Landscape with a Thunderstorm (c. 1620) is an altarpiece painted on a
large panel formed from many separate pieces of wood. It is properly
called Landscape with Philemon and Baucis. This story is from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses. Two travelers seeking shelter for the night were turned
away from many well-to-do houses. Arriving
at the cottage of the elderly and poor couple
Philemon and Baucis, they were admitted
and offered food and wine; the travelers
then revealed themselves to be Jupiter
and Mercury.
The painting tells the story from a later
point, when the gods take the couple up the
mountain, where they can see the devastating
À ood that was summoned to punish the
inhospitable inhabitants of the region. They also see that their cottage has
been transformed into a temple. Asked what wish the gods might grant them,
the couple asked that they might serve as guardians of the temple. We see a
great landscape with the torrent still À owing, although the storm is abating.
Men and animals are pictured dead or trying to escape, and the temple glows
in the distance.
The Marie de’Medici cycle (c. 1622–1625) was commissioned by Marie, the
queen of France, for the Luxembourg Palace. There were to be two cycles—
one gallery for Marie and the other for her deceased husband, Henry IV.
The latter cycle was scarcely begun before Marie was forced into exile by
Cardinal Richelieu. Twenty-four huge paintings were done in three years.
Rubens wrote, “I am, by natural instinct, better ¿ tted to execute very large
works than small curiosities....” Rubens had a large studio of assistants, but
he conceived of, designed, and completed his own work unless speci¿ cally
stated otherwise in a contract. The subject for this cycle is Marie’s life,
marriage, and reign. The subject matter is much ado about very little, but
The Education of
Marie de’Medici
depicts Marie being
educated by the gods,
with the Three Graces
in attendance.