What Does Rubenesque Mean?

Rubenesque describes a woman with a full, rounded, soft figure, after the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640). Today it works as a polite way to say full-figured or curvy. Merriam-Webster defines it first as relating to or resembling the painter or his works, and especially as full-figured with a pleasing roundness.

Rubens worked in Antwerp and painted for kings and queens, and his nudes gave English a word for a fuller body.

Rubens Feast of Venus mythological scene
The Feast of Venus, Peter Paul Rubens. His nudes are soft and full figured.

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When the word first appeared in English, it had nothing to do with weight.

And in Rubens's own century, a heavy body was not always a compliment. I don't believe he simply painted what his age found beautiful.


What You'll Discover

  • When it started to mean plump.

  • The material Rubens told painters to avoid.

  • Who the woman in the fur was.

  • What worried the king's brother.

  • What his century thought of heavy bodies.

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