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May 26, 2008
Lisa Rosenthal Gender, Politics, and Allegory in the Art of Rubens Cambridge University Press, 2004. 312 pp.; 8 color ills.; 85 b/w ills. Cloth $91.00 (0521842441)
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CrossRef DOI: 10.3202/caa.reviews.2008.50

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As everyone who studies and loves the art of Rubens knows, the essential challenge posed by his work is a tension between the colorful, dynamic sensuality of his figures and the abstract concepts they often represent. Lisa Rosenthal’s ambitious, beautifully wrought study reveals that this tension is not only Rubens’s deliberate project but an especially fruitful one. In a felicitously tight structure, Rosenthal concentrates on just five paintings: four political and mythological works and a...