Sands after Rubens. The Education of Mary de Medicis

The editors of the Historic Gallery efficiently identify the primary elements of Maria’s education as Rubens has pictured them: “The scene is laid at the grotto of the fountain Castalia. Minerva instructs the young princess in the elements of the sciences. Apollo, crowned with laurel, inspires her with a love of the fine arts; the attributes of which are visibly grouped with the aegis of the goddess. The Graces preside at the education of Mary; one of them presents her with a crown of flowers; and Mercury descends from heaven to endow her with the gift of eloquence.” In addition to praising the “elegant” attitude of the Graces, the editors note that “two of these figures” have been covered by a “veil” by “a different hand” than Rubens’s own. “In this outline we conceived it a duty to follow the original, as painted by Rubens” (HG 7, n.p.). The two veils were removed in Villot’s controversial restoration of the original painting in the early 1850s, shortly after Melville’s 1849 visit to the Louvre (see fig. 1; Thuillier 149).

How beauteously Rubens bathes the three Graces in bright light within the shade of the grotto, lighting too the absorptive face of young Mary at the lap of Minerva. In the outline engraving, the Graces recede into more of a decorative role as the density of line brings more attention to Apollo (and his laurel) at the viola da gamba, Minerva (and her helmet) with the book, and Mercury (with his speed) flying in from above, all bestowing their own graces on the young princess eagerly intent on her studies. For the first time in the cycle, “we . . . see Marie as an active individual with a personality of her own” (Millen and Wolf, 48).

In the foreground of the engraving, the tilt that Rubens gives a Homeric bust and a Medusan shield can be seen as symbolizing either a classical past or a tumultuous future for the young queen to be. The helmeted Minerva personifies the Wisdom that is being absorbed by her attentive disciple while the laureled Apollo, more often interpreted as Orpheus, personifies musical harmony. Minerva looks directly down at her young student while the eyes of Orpheus caress the Three Graces directly across from him, their unclad bodies perhaps suggesting the ”maternal fecundity” of which the adult Marie “was to be so justly proud.” The clear linearity of the engraving shows that Mercury, in addition to his traditional embodiment of eloquence, is inserting into the space between Minerva and Marie his attribute of the “caduceus,” the image of “two serpents in equilibrium around a rod.” This traditional symbol of “discordia concors” can be seen to represent “the freight of future responsibilities” in the young girl’s education, and the challenge she will have in bringing peace and concord to the conflicting forces and personalities she will encounter in her adult life (Millen and Wolf, 43, 45-46).

Whether looking the illuminated flesh of the painting or the open linearity of the engraving, the viewer can both see and feel the spatial perfection of the “circular containment” that Millen and Wolf find in the pictorial design: “Maria studies her lesson within a perfect circle drawn from the top of Mercury’s head to and around the musician’s head and right arm and the base of his gamba” before curving around the bodies of the Graces and back to the head of Mercury again. “All the elements touched by the circle symbolize in themselves peace, harmony, and concord, qualities that are “enhanced rather than disturbed by the dynamic motif of the swirl of red drapery” through which Mercury has entered. The actions and attributes encircling the young Marie on the left side, balanced by the illuminated bodies of the Graces on the right, create a perfect balance between mind and body, nurture and nature, making The Education of Marie de Medicis “one of those rare and perfect paintings in which form and content, expression and mood, are inseparable and as if conceived all together and at once” (48). In Melvillian terms, this painting resembles the repose of “The Mast-Head” before “The Quarter-Deck,” of “The Mat-Maker” before “The First Lowering.”