Flemish artist, one of the greatest
painters of his age. He was born in Siegen, Westphalia, the son of Jan
Rubens, a Protestant lawyer from Antwerp, who had left his home town to
escape religious persecution. Most of Peter Paul's childhood, however, was
spent in Cologne, where he and his elder brother Philip were encouraged by
their learned father to develop their considerable intellectual gifts. In
1589, two years after the death of Jan Rubens, his widow and their children
returned to Antwerp, having first officially reconverted to the Catholic
faith.
In Antwerp Peter Paul attended a well-known grammar school, leaving in 1590
to become a page to the Countess de Ligne-Arenberg at Oudenarde. Life at
this provincial court must have been frustrating to the young man, but it
may have taught him lessons in etiquette and diplomacy which were to be
valuable in his later career. In 1591 Rubens began his training as a
painter: with a kinsman, the landscape artist Tobias Verhaeght (1561–1631);
from 1592 with Adam van Noort (1562–1641), also the teacher (and later
father-in-law) of Jacob Jordaens; and from c.1594/5 with the erudite Otto
van Veen, the most influential of his three teachers and one of the most
distinguished artists in Antwerp. The few identified works from this period
show the style of van Veen as well as a knowledge of Italian Renaissance
prints.
In 1598 Rubens became a master in the Antwerp painters' guild, and in 1600
he left for Italy where he spent eight formative years. Nominally in the
service of the Duke of Mantua, he travelled to other cities where he studied
the art of classical Antiquity and of his Italian predecessors and
contemporaries, and accepted commissions from individual patrons and church
authorities. In 1603 he was sent to Spain by the Duke with presents for
Philip III and his court. His most important commission in Spain, and his
most successful early work, is the Equestrian Portrait of the Duke of Lerma
(Madrid, Prado), which set the standard for future portraits of this type.
Similarly, on visits to Genoa, he painted a series of full-length portraits
of the local aristocracy, which were to inspire van Dyck on his visit to
that city in 1621 (Washington, NG).
But unlike his northern compatriots, known in Italy primarily for their
landscapes and portraits, Rubens established himself successfully as a
history painter. At Mantua, he decorated a room with scenes after Virgil's
Aeneid (1602, fragments only; Prague, Castle Mus.; Paris, Louvre) and
executed three large altar paintings for the new Jesuit church (1604–5;
Baptism of Christ; Antwerp, Koninklijk Mus. voor Schone Kunsten;
Transfiguration; Nancy, Mus. des Beaux-Arts; Gonzaga Family Adoring the
Trinity, fragments only; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale; Vienna, Kunsthist. Mus.).
In Rome, he was commissioned twice for altarpieces, first for S. Croce in
Gerusalemme (1601–2; now Grasse, chapel of the Municipal Hospital) and then
for S. Maria in Valicella (1607; first version in Grenoble, Mus. des
Beaux-Arts; 1608; second version in situ).
In 1608 Rubens returned home. Antwerp, at this time, had lost its position
as a powerful international centre of trade, but it had become instead the
cultural headquarters of the Counter-Reformation in Flanders. It had a
lively artistic community and its wealthy burghers, together with the Church
and the court at Brussels, provided patrons. This was a desirable setting
for an artist of Rubens's stature and talents. In 1609 he was appointed
painter to the Archduke Albert of Austria and his wife the Infanta Isabella,
the rulers of the Southern Netherlands by appointment from Spain. By his own
wish, he did not live at court but established his workshop in Antwerp. In
the same year he married Isabella Brant, daughter of one of the city's
secretaries. The portrait he painted of himself and his young wife sitting
in a honeysuckle bower (Munich, Alte Pin.) reveals something of the intimate
side of his life.
Rubens's public activity is attested by an astonishing series of commissions
during the years 1609–21. They included two major altarpieces for Antwerp
churches, the triptychs with the Raising of the Cross and the Descent from
the Cross, the latter for the cathedral (now both Antwerp Cathedral); The
Miraculous Draught of Fishes for the church at Malines; the designs for a
series of tapestries of the history of Decius Mus, to which van Dyck and Jan
Wildens, who were members of Rubens's workshop, contributed (Vaduz,
Liechtenstein Coll.); altarpieces and sketches for 39 ceiling paintings for
the new Jesuit church at Antwerp. The church was destroyed by fire in 1718
and all the ceiling paintings, which were largely executed by van Dyck, were
lost, but the small oil sketches survive, mainly in the Vienna Academy, the
Courtauld Institute Galleries, and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Although
Rubens continued to paint autograph pictures—portraits of the Regents, of
his family and friends, collectors' pictures on biblical or mythological
themes, or of exotic animal hunts (for example Munich, Alte Pin.)—many of
the public commissions were executed by the studio, working from coloured
oil sketches by the master, such as those for the Jesuit ceiling. In 1622
Rubens published Palazzi di Genova, an architectural pattern book of plans
and façades to show his countrymen how to replace what he termed their
‘barbaric or Gothic’ style of architecture with one that conformed ‘to rules
of the ancient Greeks and Romans’. The house he built for himself in Antwerp
helped to popularize the style.
For the Jesuit church Rubens had created not only altarpieces but an entire,
and quite novel, interior decoration based on Venetian models, specifically
those of Titian and Veronese. In 1622–5 he executed, again with studio aid,
a large cycle of paintings glorifying the life of the Queen Mother of
France, Marie de Médicis, for her new palace of the Luxembourg (now Paris,
Louvre). This was to be paired with a series of paintings extolling Marie's
late husband Henri IV, which was never completed (e.g. Florence, Uffizi).
The pictorial language Rubens created for the Médicis series—a combination
of narrative and allegory—is demonstrated again, this time in a sacred
context, in his designs for tapestries representing the Triumph of the
Eucharist for the Infanta Isabella's favoured convent in Madrid, the
Descalzas Reales (1625–7; tapestries, Madrid, Descalzas Reales; sketches,
Chicago, Art Inst.; Cambridge, Fitzwilliam; Bayonne, Mus. Bonnat; Madrid,
Prado; and other collections). At this time, he also painted two important
altarpieces for Antwerp churches: the Assumption of the Virgin for the high
altar in the cathedral and the Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints for
the church of S. Augustine. Both works, in their greater luminosity and
vibrancy, betray the influence of Titian, who was to become the overwhelming
artistic experience of Rubens's last years.
In 1626 Rubens's wife Isabella Brant died and the artist became increasingly
involved in diplomatic work to promote the reunification of the Netherlands
and peace in Europe. Initially sent on secret missions on behalf of the
Infanta, he soon found himself in the role of full-fledged diplomat with
orders from the Spanish court (see Madrid). His political missions—to Spain
in 1628, and to England in 1629–30—resulted not only in a peace treaty
between these two countries (though his ultimate goal, the reunification of
the Netherlands, was never achieved), but also brought him major decorative
commissions from the art-loving monarchs Philip IV and Charles I (see
London): for the ceiling of Inigo Jones's Banqueting Hall in Whitehall
(completed 1634; London, in situ), and for Philip's hunting lodge near
Madrid, the Torre de la Parada, a series of mythological paintings based on
Ovid's Metamorphoses (completed, almost entirely by assistants, c.1636–8;
ensemble destr.; remaining paintings Madrid, Prado; autograph sketches
Brussels, Mus. Royaux; Bayonne, Mus. Bonnat; Rotterdam, Boymans-van
Beuningen Mus.; and others). Most significant for Rubens however was his
encounter with the works of Titian in the Spanish collections, especially
the mythologies the latter painted for Philip II, of which Rubens made
painted copies (Madrid, Prado; Knowsley Hall, Merseyside).
The third major cycle on which Rubens worked during the 1630s was the
festive decorations he designed for the entry into Antwerp on 17 April 1635
of the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, the new Regent of the Southern
Netherlands. Closer to his heart than either of the large royal commissions,
Rubens took the opportunity to plead on behalf of his city's stricken
economy in images traditionally reserved for princely flattery (recorded in
engravings by Theodoor van Thulden, published 1642, and preserved in a
series of oil sketches). His political ideals are more famously evoked in
two allegories on the subject of war and peace: Minerva Protecting Peace
from Mars (1629–30; London, NG), painted in England for Charles I, and The
Horrors of War (c.1637; Florence, Pitti), sent to the Medici court.
In 1630 Rubens remarried, to the young Helena Fourment. She was the epitome
of all Rubensian models and appears in many of his late works, not only in
portraits but in the guise of various saints and deities. Many of these
paintings, especially the portraits and mythologies, are of a more intimate
nature than much of Rubens's previous work. Meanwhile he continued to
receive public commissions. Besides the great cycles already referred to, he
painted altarpieces for churches at home and abroad, among them the
altarpiece of S. Ildefonso, with its portraits of the Archduke and the
Infanta (c.1631–2; Vienna, Kunsthist. Mus.) But here also one finds the
boundaries between the public and the private becoming less distinct as
Rubens uses public commissions, such as the decorations for the entry of
Ferdinand, to express his personal concerns for the city of Antwerp and his
country.
The last four years of his life Rubens spent in quasi semi-retirement in the
newly purchased country manor Het Steen (London, NG). Here he painted for
his own pleasure an astonishing series of pictures. Especially remarkable
are his landscapes with their pioneering observations of light and
reflections, weather and atmosphere (London, NG, Wallace Coll., Courtauld
Inst. Gal.; Oxford, Ashmolean). His genre scenes are variations on rustic
themes first popularized by Pieter Bruegel the elder (the so-called Kermesse
flamande, Paris, Louvre), and fantasies on courtly or pastoral love which
were the source of the 18th-century fête galante (The Garden of Love;
Madrid, Prado).
Rubens's genius encompassed every branch of the visual arts common in the
17th century: he executed singly or with the help of the studio altarpieces
and large-scale mural and ceiling decorations for churches or palaces; he
painted individual canvases and panels for patrons, the art market, or
himself; he furnished designs for tapestries, sculpture, silverwork, and
prints (mainly title-pages). His subject matter is far-reaching. Primarily a
history painter, he also executed portraits, landscapes, and, to a lesser
degree, genre scenes; only still lifes are absent from his œuvre. At the
basis of his art as well as his immense production lies draughtsmanship. He
came to draw with the brush as with the chalk or pen. The accuracy of his
designs enabled assistants to work from them; the assurance and vibrancy of
his strokes brings his compositions to life, whether in their preliminary
stages or the large canvases and panels executed by studio assistants and
retouched by him. The other keystone of his genius was the luminosity of his
colour, which was influenced by the Venetians, especially Titian, but
inspired by the earlier Flemish tradition. His manner of juxtaposing primary
and complementary colours anticipated French 19th-century developments.
Though one of the greatest painters of his age, Rubens did not content
himself with painting only. His diplomatic work has already been mentioned,
as has his interest in architecture. He was also scholarly, an insatiable
reader, collector of books, antiquities, and other works of art. He
corresponded on all manner of subjects with the most erudite people in
Europe. His letters, as well as the testimony of his contemporaries, present
a man of independent mind, strong conviction, impeccable tact, and, in the
few surviving personal documents, warm affections. The high degree to which
Rubens was valued by his princely patrons is witnessed by the honours and
privileges bestowed on him: Archduchess Isabella made him her adviser and
confidant; Philip IV appointed him secretary of the Spanish privy council;
Charles I knighted him, as did Philip IV. These honours were, of course,
connected to his diplomatic activities. Yet it is as painter that Rubens's
fame endured throughout the centuries. His work affected not only countless
contemporaries but also successive generations of artists even into the 20th
century. His portraits became the standard for aristocratic portraiture; his
landscapes revolutionized the genre. But is is, above all, his power of
conveying energy and emotion through the brilliancy of his colour, the
fluency of his brush strokes, and the mastery of his compositions that has
proved universal.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lohse Belkin, K., Rubens (1993).
White, C., Peter Paul Rubens, Man and Artist (1987).