The Louvre Art, Guido Reni-The Abduction of Helen-16th century Existentialism and Shakespeare

Hey guys, welcome back to my channel, it's Demetri Vlogmas. Today is Vlogmas Day 8, so I would just like to thank all of you who have been watching, subscribing and sharing my content. Today I'm going to be showcasing and analysing my favourite piece of Louvre artwork, specifically my favourite painting. It's called L'Enfant Delin, it's by René Guido. I'm going to be analysing it in terms of themes, techniques and characters, in relation to other artists and other forms of art that came about in the same era, specifically Shakespeare and his play A Midsummer Night's Dream. Today's vlog is a bit long, so please find the timestamps dealing with particular subject matter in the description. Seeing every single piece of artwork in the Louvre can only take place over the course of about a 3 day tour on average, so nonetheless they say that there is always one particular piece of artwork, one chef d'oeuvre in French, one masterpiece, that stands out to everybody who visits the Louvre. Something of a disclaimer, I do not have any academic qualifications in Fine Arts, however I did do a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and my minor was English Literature, so I'm not really here to analyse how particular brushstrokes mean anything in particular. I'm sure a lot of what I'm saying would actually be the common sense interpretation. For me it was L'Enlèvement d'Ellen, pardon my French, literally it's not perfect, but it roughly translates to The Abduction of Helen, which is perhaps sort of a re-imagination of the title in a more family-friendly kind of way, because the initial title was The Rape of Helen. Rene Guido was known for creating artwork with religious, allegorical and mythological themes. So he lived and worked in the 17th century, between the 16th and the 17th century, which was around the same time as Shakespeare was creating content. And he, like much of Shakespeare's art, seemed to have been grappling with the age-old question of what is love. So initially I thought seeing sort of the political undertones in this painting came from my worldview, which is quite political, but on closer examination I believe that that may have been Rene's intent, regardless of the viewer. The way that Rene uses Cupid gives this painting a very existential feel, but he sort of does it in a similar way that Shakespeare used characters such as Puck. He's almost like the Puck of this painting. Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, you know? He's sort of a side character. He weaves in and out of actual narratives, but at the end of Shakespeare's plays, he's the one who comes out and addresses the audience directly and sort of asks people how things can be improved, you know? I'm sure that paintings don't have narrators, but he is sort of like the narrator of this painting. So Cupid is a deity. I guess, in a certain way, he represents predestiny, sort of a divine force that catalyzes things when he so chooses. He sort of uses Cupid as the author of the existential question for mankind. So, I mean, not to be graphic, but it's no secret that we come from relations between men and women, and the question then is, why do we do what we do? Why do we form relationships? Why do we choose a particular partner over another? Why do we continue to have kids with, you know, whomever? I love the way that the use of Cupid as almost the narrator of this scenario causes the viewers of this painting to ask themselves all of these questions. The true point of the painting was to critique the realities of love and marriage, which is sort of avant-garde for, I guess, this era. And the reason I say that, despite just acknowledging that Shakespeare was doing the same thing and a lot of other Renaissance authors and artists were doing the same thing, is because the idea of the love marriage has really only taken hold in society, sort of with globalization. So it's been around in the West for a while, but it has really started to pick up globally, as in outside the West, within, I guess, the last 30 years or so. Because, as we know, marriages have always been sort of a political construct, a social construct, a social contract almost. They did not necessarily need to involve love before, or love was not the priority in why and when people would be married. So I thought that this was quite ahead of its time for that reason. This painting's subject matter, the abduction of Helen, is by no means specific to this period. This has not been the first time it was depicted in a painting format. As I was saying, it's Greek mythology, classic Greek mythology. But there have been all sorts of interpretations of this painting throughout history. And a lot of the other paintings that have existed have had sort of a very pronounced element of violence, of extremely fast pace. You know, the militaristic theme comes out a lot more clearly, or rather, the war theme comes out a lot more clearly in a lot of the other paintings that have come about on this particular subject matter. But this painting, yes, you can clearly see the military garb in this painting, but the pace, at a glance, it could just have looked like a noble who was out for a walk and had a military accompaniment, which I would have imagined would have been normal. I actually had to look at the title of the painting to understand the scenario I was supposedly looking at. And I think that that is really what made this painting unique to me. Because unlike some of the other paintings we have seen, Helen does not look particularly bothered. She doesn't look interested, but she doesn't look like she's under tremendous amount of duress, as would have been seen in some of the other paintings that portrayed this exact scenario. The true distinction with this painting is the way that Gwailu uses eye contact and pointing of different persons. The pointing and the eye contact is what gives it the same sort of pace and the idea that there's somewhat of an air of urgency there in relation to the other paintings that really depict the pace a lot differently. But through the pointing and through the eye contact, you sort of get the impression that no, this is not just a lady on a stool. The pointing and the eye contact give time to this pace. All of the characters who are pointing or looking seem to be foreshadowing war or something negative in this painting. I thought, you know, perhaps, like it took me quite a bit to reason out which of these men in military garb was actually supposed to be Paris. But the fact that he's not really looking directly at who, he's sort of preoccupied with something in the background, right? Sort of really emphasizes the fact that the reason this whole scenario unfolded was not really so much only because of love, but because Paris had his own political ambitions and Helen was really just sort of a piece of collateral or like a pawn, so to speak, in his grander scheme of what he was doing. Like I said, it almost looks like he's looking at a lady's maid in the background. So the idea of this face that launched a thousand ships, it sort of becomes diluted. Like was it really her face if he's looking at, you know, the other women in the background? Is it that Paris is looking at the woman behind Helen because he's not truly in love with her? And is Cupid going to change that? Similarly, is Helen not so much into Paris, but is Cupid going to change that? And another interesting element was the fact that he's pointing. Now, at first, at a glance, I couldn't tell if he was pointing at, you know, Helen and Paris or if he was pointing at some ships you can see in the background. So it sort of, you know, creates or rather amplifies the idea of Cupid as this mischief maker, a theme that is quite commonly portrayed in Shakespeare. So he knows that his arrow is going to set off a chain of events that would involve these warships that we are supposedly seeing in the background. If you know anything about Greek history, you know that the sea was very important to Greek military victories. They really used their military like their navy, specifically against the Persians, for example. So Cupid kind of seems to be pointing towards the ships, which I assume signify war itself. At the same time, there are these sort of soldiers in the background pointing at something. We can't see what it is. I'm not sure if, you know, it was supposed to be sort of allegorical for soldiers pointing towards, you know, enemies or enemy ships. But that is the impression that I got. So at this point, it looks like so many other person, characters in this painting can see that this situation will lead to war, right? Well, that is the principal thing on so many people's minds. But Paris appears to be checking out some lady in the background, right? And it's, you know, the soldiers who are going to have to carry the brunt on the regular persons. And that also brings me to the lady's knee in the background, who is also looking directly at the viewer. So on one hand, I can't tell if she, you know, is looking at us because she thinks it's not really appropriate for Paris to be looking at her, or if... But the expression on her face is sort of the same as Cupid's expression, as if to say, well, whatever is happening here is not going to be good for anybody, so to speak, you know? So if I want to speak from a layman's perspective on artistic technique by Eero, moving forward from the Renaissance, you definitely saw a lot more paintings and artwork that did their best to look as realistic as possible. And that sort of emphasizes the existential theme here, that, you know, you're looking at a scene in life. It may not necessarily be Helen and Paris's scale for the average viewer, but the question of why we choose particular people in relation to our societal constrictions really comes out here, and it's more emphasized due to the realistic nature of the characters in this painting. Like, they had proportions and an appearance that still exists today, in 2020. And along with that realistic portrayal, the question still exists, who do we love, why do we love, what does love really mean? The viewer asks themselves why we do things, you know? Why we pick a particular partner, why we continue to have kids with particular people. Is it predestiny? Is the social contract really all there is, or all that is important in marriage? Or is there more to it? We are not sure if Cupid has already fired an arrow, or if he is going to, but we cannot see any arrows protruding from any of the characters. So we have to ask ourselves, what is the true role of love in this? Would it change the situation between Helen and Paris? Would it change history? Would it decrease the likelihood of war? Does love overpower diplomatic relations? Paris knowing the diplomatic implications of what he's doing. About whether Paris and Helen being in love would have changed the war. Would it have prevented the war? Would it have made the war worse? These are the questions that the viewer is forced to ask themselves. Looking at Cupid, he's sort of poised to do something.