Boucher, Madame de Pompadour

SPEAKER 1: We're looking at
Francois Boucher's The Marquise

de Pompadour.

SPEAKER 2: So and I have
to, before we go into this,

just say that I don't really
like rococo paintings,

but I really like this one.

There's something really
beautiful about it.

SPEAKER 1: So what is it?

SPEAKER 2: I'm taken in by the
pink ruffles, and the lace,

and the cameo on her
wrist, and the pouf

that she's using
to powder herself,

and the flowers on the bottom,
and the pink of her cheeks,

and the blue bow in her
hair, and the little pink

at the end of the
brush that she's

using to put on her blush.

I mean, it's just really yummy.

SPEAKER 1: OK, so let's talk
about those things for just

a moment, because they
really do catch the eye.

The lace and the pink
ribbons have a kind

of almost architectural
quality to them

that's really extraordinary.

SPEAKER 2: Yeah, they have a
kind of real volume to them.

SPEAKER 1: They have
volume and structure.

And you can feel the weight and
the stiffness of the fabric.

And the pouf is the
opposite of that.

And there's tremendous
focus, of course,

on the cameo on her
wrist, because it's

a portrait of her lover.

SPEAKER 2: King Louis the XV.

SPEAKER 1: That's
right, of France.

But then contrast that with
the rendering of her face,

of her head, which is sort
of impossibly soft and sort

of re-formed.

Look at the size of
the eyes in comparison

to the size of the mouth.

She's become a child.

SPEAKER 2: That's true.

I hadn't thought of that.

SPEAKER 1: It's
almost as if we're

looking at Japanese cartoons.

What are those called?

SPEAKER 2: Anime.

I mean, it's certainly
not about her personality,

and who she was, and her
humanity in any real way.

SPEAKER 1: No, it's
her persona, right?

SPEAKER 2: Yes,
it's her persona.

And that's, to me, that's what
the whole painting is about.

It's just about artifice.

It's like the artifice
of the French court

in the 18th Century,
in the rococo period.

It's about the artifice of
the clothing, of the makeup.

It's just about surface.

SPEAKER 1: It's true.

But this is a very intimate
kind of surface, isn't it?

And so--

SPEAKER 2: Well, that it's the
king's lover-- in that way?

SPEAKER 1: Yeah, and also
just the sense of proximity.

We feel--

SPEAKER 2: That's true.

We're very close to her.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah, we feel
as if we can reach out.

SPEAKER 2: We're
her best friend,

and she's about to share
an intimate secret.

SPEAKER 1: That's exactly right.

But then her eye rises
up across her wrist,

over the portrait of her
lover, across her breast,

up to her neck.

And then finally
we get to her face,

which seems sort
of almost remote.

SPEAKER 2: The
first thing that I

noticed was all of those
accessories of artifice.

And then I looked at her face.

I read the label.

OK, this is the
mistress to Louis XV.

And then I thought,
who is this woman?

I looked at her face for clues.

And I didn't get anything.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah,
the sense of clarity

with which the
artifice, as you put it,

is painted against the
softness and the indeterminacy

of her individuality is, I
think, clearest in the collar.

Look how incredibly
crisp, almost frozen,

that collar is, and then
look at the softness.

But there is this wild sense
of indeterminacy and mystery,

I think.