Jupiter and Juno seated on clouds, with an eagle holding thunderbolts below at left 1631

Curator: Willem Panneels created this print in 1631. Titled "Jupiter and Juno seated on clouds, with an eagle holding thunderbolts below at left," it’s currently part of the collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: Oh, it’s delightfully whimsical! Sort of serious, sort of flirtatious, the way those Baroque artists could just layer it all on. There’s such a nice intimacy amid all this godly iconography. Curator: Precisely! Panneels was working as a reproductive printmaker, taking Rubens's sketches and paintings and translating them into prints. So in a sense, this is doubly mediated. It gives it a curious quality. Editor: Absolutely. I am particularly drawn to the embrace, the almost chiding way Juno seems to be speaking with Jupiter; they seem like any other couple on a particularly fluffy cloud. The eagle lurking down below with thunderbolts adds a nice dark touch, though. "Don't forget I can smite you," he seems to say! Curator: Well, and this touches on how depictions of the gods at this time served as more than just simple illustrations of mythology; they upheld social and political power, the divine sanction of earthly rule. They mirror it and, I daresay, legitimize it. Editor: So they are having couple arguments in a powerful symbolic universe that keeps our lives in check. And yet… the fragility of those engraved lines! It reminds you that even these grand narratives are just constructed from the simplest means. Is that beautiful, or terrifying? Curator: Both, perhaps! It’s the tension, that ever-present contradiction, that gives this era so much appeal. Editor: You know, looking at it again, I'm charmed by how casual the composition feels, considering the lofty subject matter. It's as if Panneels caught them in a moment of divine downtime. Curator: Well, I am taking it more as an exercise of how power dynamic goes into the visual field and defines the politics and public role of art. Thank you! Editor: Thank you too. I see it a bit more differently, now. A lot of that has to do with the intimate scale – and of course the fact that I know a real life version of Jupiter and Juno… somewhere!