Rubens and the Human Body - Beau Livre

Did contemporary audiences recognise the sensuously painted 'Rubensian body' as a particular, if not peculiar, artistic repertoire ? How can we best understand seventeenth-century practises of reading and viewing the Rubensian body ? Can our criteria for eroticism be linked with that of Rubens ? Was the body a fluid category for Rubens and where does the boundary of the human body lie ? Through these investigative questions, this volume will lead to a detailed evaluation of the paradigmatic status of the Rubensian body, and will question whether we are justified in stressing its singularity within seventeenth-century Flemish and broader early modern European visual culture.