Allegories and baroque opulence
Two women protagonists of a universe created for your delight. Pleasures arranged for the enjoyment of two senses; sight and taste.
The composition of each of our works is clear, the female characters are arranged in the center as an axis from which the stage and the rest of the elements start. Each of these is wisely chosen to convey a message, the vanity and delight that the senses bring. The rooms where the scene takes place are cabinets of curiosities.
On the one hand the lot 35310192, the “kunstkammer” of a rich collector who has treasured “the healing of the blind man by Rubens” or a bronze sculpture of the Rape of Hippodamia as well as tables full of jewelry, shells, watches or coins that roll until they fall on the floor. This exuberance turns us into one more character of the painting since we are feeling a similar effect of enjoyment with its contemplation. The allegory of the view has two subtle details that transcend the material treasures, one serious nature that manifests itself behind the walls of the room and the globes where the name of America is intuited in a clear allusion to the whole world that is yet to be seen and discovered.
Taste is a banquet with only one guest (35310193). The lady occupies a place of honor so clear that everything around her is displayed for her to choose from. About forty delicacies in the room; game hanging from the ceiling, fruits overflowing from the table, trays like the one carried by the satyr barely have room on a tablecloth unable to contain so much food. Two scenes take place in the background, an inert one with the painting of the Banquet of the Rich Epulon and one full of life and realism, the lunch in a Flemish house with guests at the table, cooks and servants in an atmosphere of profound everyday life. Different worlds coexist in the same painting, the main scene being a waste of exquisiteness.
Why all this opulence? What is the message hidden in the paintings? The baroque language employed suggests both a delight in the contemplation of beautiful things and a moralizing message: being swept away by the pleasures of the senses can be all-consuming. The best way to understand this idea is through the monkeys that intersperse the scenes. They discreetly play a human role. Their attitudes ridicule man’s own behavior, drunkenness, gluttony, vanity and other sins are highlighted as a warning to the viewer. The art here can play with us and propose two paths after seeing the works: follow the author’s advice and flee from the excesses, or on the contrary let ourselves be carried away by the pleasures of the senses after being tempted by them.
