Complete 5 pages APA formatted article: Le Brun's Humanization of Marie Antoinette.

Complete 5 pages APA formatted article: Le Brun's Humanization of Marie Antoinette. Le Brun and Marie Antoinette crossed each other’s path when the painter was ordered to paint the French queen. On that day, they were able to establish a relaxed emotional connection which soon became a close friendship. The queen was very much pleased with Le Brun’s portrait of her, and the first sitting session became the mark to the succeeding ones. On an account, there was a time when the painter became seriously ill and was not able to attend her appointment in Versailles with the Queen. The day after, she went to apologize and the Queen did not hesitate nor had slight regretful feeling towards Elisabeth (“Marie Antoinette’s”). The queen accepted the painter’s reappointment of her sitting without hesitation. Le Brun noted that “in [her] eagerness to respond to this kindness, [she] seized [her] paint box with such a rush that it spilled” and the Queen herself picked it up for her” (“Marie Antoinette’s”). The very act of a noble to pick up a commoner’s things is strong evidence of Marie Antoinette’s undisturbed confidence towards her friendship with her portraitist. In Clara Clement’s Women in Fine Arts, she claimed that Le Brun is the queen’s confident in many ways and knows “the secrets of her life” (206). It was an advantage for Le Brun to have personal connections with the Queen because, through it, her art is vivid to the entire country. It is also through Marie Antoinette that she became part of the Academie (206).

Although this is the case, a dilemma still persists that the queen’s kindness towards the painter is largely due to personal interest. According to Gita May, “Marie Antoinette consistently treated Vigee Le Brun with utmost kindness and consideration” (3) because she knows that she is making her image more appealing to the public despite her morally corrupt reputation. This is not expected for any royalty in her time since they were held as above anybody else. Before the queen’s life was ended through guillotine, she made attempts to save the life of Marie Antoinette through propaganda letters and portraits of the Queen as a mother, a plain woman, and a serious political leader.