Pleasure and Flesh in the Art of Rubens - Representing the Body in Early Modern Painting

Peter Paul Rubens created a new kind of fleshy body, turning folds and fat from signs of sin into vivid emblems of nature, nourishment, and joy. Moving from Bacchic revels through intimate portraits of Isabella Brant, Helena Fourment, and their children to the Allegory of Peace, Sara Benninga shows how Rubens shifts attention from Early Modern anxieties about illicit excess to a realm of licit pleasures where wine, marriage, family and civic concord are deeply interrelated. The study offers art and cultural historians as well as readers interested in the depiction of the body and emotions in art history new insights into Rubens’ paintings, and a fresh way to understand how Early Modern images made pleasure visible and reshaped the painted body.