Dance of Italian Villagers 1636

Peter Paul Rubens painted this exuberant scene of dancing villagers on canvas sometime in the early 17th century. It's a picture of joy, but also a reflection of the social hierarchy of its time. Rubens, a Flemish artist working in the Baroque style, often depicted mythological and historical scenes, and he moves those influences into this picture. Though the title directs us to imagine Italian Villagers, the clothing, and the setting is more suggestive of an ideal, possibly classical, landscape. The joyful revelry, the sensuous depiction of flesh, are tempered, however, by the presence of the large house in the background, and the figure playing a flute from within the tree. These are signifiers of power. This image is very likely to be more of a fantasy than reality. To properly understand paintings like this, we need to consult historical sources, such as costume books, social histories, and records of patronage, so that we understand the nuances of the culture that produced them.