Make sure you know how to pronounce the/allowing words:
Antwerp; Luxembourg; Cologne; Protestant; emigre; Medici; dowager; protege; Richelieuw; Minerva; Flanders; Louis; regent
Notes
Raising of the Cross – «Воздвижение креста»
Fall of the Damned – «Падение проклятых»
Garden of Love – «Сад наслаждений»
Tasks
I. Read the text. Mark the following statements true or false.
1. Peter Paul Rubens was the most educated person of his time.
2. Rubens was fond of High Renaissance masters.
3. As Rubens's style matured, it took on a richness of colour.
4. Rubens's figures were disembodied and mystical.
5. In 1621-25 Rubens carried out a splendid commission from Louis XIII.
6. Rubens depicted the major Roman gods in the portrait of Maria de' MedicI.
II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1. When and where did Rubens first emerge on the international scene? Where was Rubens educated?
2. What could Rubens allegedly do at one and the same time? How did Rubens produce his works of art?
3. What is represented in the Raising of the Cross? What kind of painting is it? Where can the power of Rubens be seen? What is depicted in this painting?
5. How did the Michelangelo and the Titian influence Rubens's works of art? In what way did Rubens's works differ from the masterpieces of the Renaissance masters?
6. What do twenty one large canvases present? What is the best painting? What does it portray? What gods and goddesses are depicted there? How are they shown? What do they symbolize? What makes this painting one of the happiest of Rubens's allegorical works? How long did Rubens support the dowager Queen of France? What did it show?
7. What is represented in the Garden of Love? What received its full embodiment in this picture?
III. I. Give Ritssian equivalents of the following phrases:
to exercise a great stylistic authority; a page to a countess; a never-ending stream of works; colour sketches on wood; a helmet and a shield; to emerge on the international scene; indefatigable energy; to raise the Cross; to make copies after Roman sculpture; the superhuman energy; the central panel of a triptych; to carry out a commission; dowager Queen of France; to be protected at every point by the divinities; a ceremonial gallery in the palace; conipositional inventiveness; Classical learning; the divine intervention; the years of exile; executioners; a tribute to; a Baroque artist; to receive its embodiment in; the Baroque testament; the energy of the composition; final coating; the redeeming power of love; Caravaggio's psychological interests; a complete picture in itself; a pyramid of struggling figures.
