Peter Paul Rubens (Siegen, June 28, 1577 - Antwerp, May 30, 1640) was a Brabantine painter of the Baroque style, proponent of an extravagant style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is known for his counter-reformist works, portraits, and historical paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.
Peter Paul Rubens's Biography
Early years
Rubens was born in Siegen, Westphalia, the son of Jan Rubens and Maria Pypelincks. His father, a Calvinist, and his mother fled from Antwerp to Cologne in 1568 because of the growing religious turmoil and persecutions of Protestants during the reign of the Duke of Alba in the Spanish Netherlands.
Jan Rubens became a legal advisor (and lover) to Anne of Saxony, the second wife of William I, Prince of Orange, and settled at her court in Siegen in 1570. After Jan Rubens was arrested because of the relationship, Peter Paul Rubens was born, in the year 1577.
The family returned to Cologne the following year, and in 1589, two years after Jan's death, he and his mother moved again to Antwerp, where he was raised as a Catholic. Religion would figure prominently in most of his work and Rubens would become one of the leading voices in painting in the Catholic Counter-Reformation.
In Antwerp, Rubens received a humanistic education, studying Latin and classical literature. At fourteen, he began his artistic apprenticeship with Tobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the city's leading painters at the time, the late Mannerist period artists Adam van Noort and Otto van Veen.
He started with Adam van Noort, then Tobias Verhaeght and finally Otto van Veen, who exerted the greatest influence on him. It was Van Veen who gave birth in Rubens a great admiration for Italy and the classical Latin culture. This marked all his work and made him serve the Catholic Latin kingdoms even though he was a Germanic son of a Protestant father.
Much of his early training involved copying the works of earlier artists, such as the woodcuts of Hans Holbein the Younger and Marcantonio Raimondi's etchings based on Raphael. Rubens completed his education in 1598, when he then joined the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master.
Italy (1600-1608)
In 1600, Rubens traveled to Italy. He stopped first in Venice, where he saw the paintings of Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The colors and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an immediate effect on Rubens' paintings, and his later, more mature style was deeply influenced by Titian. With financial support from the duke, Rubens traveled to Rome via Florence in 1601.
There, he studied classical Greek and Roman art, copying works by the Italian masters. The Hellenistic sculpture Laocoon and his sons had a special influence on him, as did the art of Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci. He was also influenced by the recent - and strongly naturalistic - work of Caravaggio.
He later made a copy of one of his works, The Burial of Christ, and recommended to his sponsor, the Duke of Mantua, that he purchase Death of the Virgin (which is now in the Louvre). In addition, he was instrumental in the acquisitions of Our Lady of the Rosary (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) for the Dominican church in Antwerp.
During his first stay in Rome, Rubens completed a commission for an altar piece, Saint Helena with the Vera Cruz for the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.
Rubens traveled to Spain on a diplomatic mission in 1603, bringing gifts from the Gonzagas to the court of Philip III. While there, he studied the huge collection of works by Raphael and Titian created by Philip II.
He also painted an equestrian portrait of the Duke of Lerma (Prado Museum) in Madrid - right) which already demonstrates the influence of works such as Titian's Portrait of Charles V (1548; in the Prado), This trip marked as the first of many in his career where he would combine the needs of art and diplomacy.
He returned to Italy in 1604, where he remained for the next four years, first in Mantua and then in Genoa and Rome. In Genoa, Rubens painted several portraits, such as the Marchesa Brigida Spinola-Doria (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) and the portrait of Maria di Antonio Serra Pallavicini, in a style that influenced the later paintings of Anthony van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds, and Thomas Gainsborough.
He also began a book on the city's palaces. Between 1606 and 1608 he stayed most of the time in Rome, and during this period he received, with the help of Cardinal Jacopo Serra (Maria Pallavicini's brother), his most important commission yet, the grand altar of the most modern and elegant new church in the city, Santa Maria in Vallicella, also known as Chiesa Nuova.
The main theme had to be St. Gregory the Great and important local saints adoring an icon of the Virgin and Child. The first version, a simple canvas (now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Grenoble), was immediately replaced by a second version, in three flat panels that allow the truly miraculous holy image of the "Holy Mary in Vallicella" to be revealed on important feasts through a removable copper cover, also painted by the artist.
Rubens' experiences in Italy continued to influence his work. He continued to write many of his correspondences in Italian, signing his name as "Pietro Paolo Rubens," and for his entire life spoke wistfully of returning to the peninsula - something that would never occur.
Before long, fame arrived. Several others followed, mainly paintings for churches and portraits of the aristocracy. He painted dukes, counts, and also burghers, the rising class in the Italian states. He becomes famous, and is known among the elites for being, besides being an excellent painter, a person of easy relationship and great sympathy.
Antwerp (1609-1621)
Learning that his mother was ill in 1608, Rubens planned to travel from Italy to Antwerp. However, she died before he could see her. His return coincided with a period of renewed prosperity in the city with the signing of the Treaty of Antwerp in April 1609, which initiated the Twelve-Year Truce.
In September 1609, Rubens was chosen as the court painter by Albert VII of Austria, and the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, sovereigns of the Spanish Netherlands. He received special permission to base his studio in Antwerp instead of Brussels, where the court was based, and also to work for other clients.
He remained close to the Archduchess Isabella until her death in 1633 and was used not only as a painter, but also as an ambassador and diplomat. Rubens further cemented his ties to the city when, on October 3, 1609, he married Isabella Brant, the daughter of one of the city's most prominent humanists, Jan Brant.
In 1610, Rubens moved into a new house and studio, designed by him. Now the Rubenshuis Museum, the Italian-influenced villa in the center of Antwerp accommodated his studio, where he and his apprentices made most of his works, as well as his personal art collection and a library, both among the largest in Antwerp.
During this period he enlarged the studio with the help of several students and assistants, the most famous of whom was the young Anthony van Dyck, who was soon to become the most famous portraitist of Antwerp and a frequent collaborator with Rubens.
He also frequently collaborated with many specialists active in the city, including the animal painter Frans Snyders, who contributed the eagle in his 'caralaha' 4(1611-12. Philadelphia Museum of Art), and with his great friend, the flower painter Jan Bruegel the Elder.
Altar pieces such as 'The Raising of the Cross' (1610) and 'The Descent from the Cross' (1611-1614) for Our Lady's Cathedral were particularly important in establishing Rubens as the most important painter in the Southern Netherlands after his return.
"The Rise of the Cross," for example, demonstrates Rubens' synthesis of Tintoretto's "Crucifixion" for the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, Michelangelo's dynamic figures, and his personal style. This painting is generally remembered as a great example of Baroque religious art.
Rubens made use of engravings and book covers, especially for his friend Balthasar Moretus, the owner of the great Plantin-Moretus publishing house, to spread his fame throughout Europe during his career. With the exception of a couple of etchings, he only produced drawings of these prints himself, leaving the actual printing to the experts, such as Lucas Vorsterman.
He recruited several carvers trained by Goltzius, whom he carefully taught to learn the more vigorous style he wanted. He also designed the last important woodcut before the revival of the technique in the 19th century. Rubens also made clear the copyright of his prints, especially in Holland, where his work was widely copied through them. He also established copyright in England, France and Spain.
The production of the paintings followed a scheme he set up, according to which he made all the first sketches and charged his apprentices to assemble a smaller scale model, which was presented to the client. If approved, Rubens would trace in pencil on the canvas and the disciples would add color and oil, leaving it up to the master again to make the "final art".
Cycle and diplomacies (1621-1631)
In 1621, the Queen Mother of France, Maria de Medici, commissioned Rubens to create two large allegorical cycles celebrating her life and that of her recently deceased husband, Henry IV, for the Luxembourg Palace in Paris.
The since named Maria de Medici Cycle (now in the Louvre) was installed in 1625, and although he began work on the second cycle, he never had time to finish it. Mary was exiled from France in 1630 by her son, Louis XIII, and died in 1642 in the same house in Cologne where Rubens had lived as a child.
With the end of the Twelve Years' Truce in 1621, the Spanish Habsburg rulers entrusted Rubens with numerous diplomatic missions. In 1624, the French ambassador wrote from Brussels, "Rubens is here to paint the portrait of the Prince of Poland, by orders of the Infanta" (Prince Władysław IV Vasa went to Brussels as a personal guest of Infanta Isabella on September 2, 1624).
Between 1627 and 1630, Rubens' diplomatic career was particularly active and he often moved between the courts of Spain and England trying to promote peace between the Spanish Netherlands and the United Provinces. He also made several trips to northern Holland, both as an artist and as a diplomat.
At the courts, he sometimes encountered people who believed that courtiers should not lay hands on any form of art or commerce, but he was also received as a gentleman at several others. It was during this period that Rubens was twice elevated to knighthood, the first by Philip IV in 1624 and the second by Charles I in 1630.
Rubens was in Madrid for eight months between 1628 and 1629. Besides diplomatic negotiations, he did several important works there for Philip IV and other private sponsors.
He was also able to begin a new study of Titian's works, copying several of them, including Madrid's "Fall of Man" (1628-1629). During his stay, he became friends with the Spanish court painter Diego Velázquez, and the two planned to visit Italy together the following year. Rubens, however, returned to Antwerp and Velazquez traveled without him.
His stay in Antwerp would be brief and he soon traveled to London, where he remained until April 1630. An important work from this period is the "Allegory on Peace and War" (1629; National Gallery, London). It is a good example of Rubens' strong concern for peace and was gifted to Charles I.
As Rubens' reputation among collectors and nobility continued to grow during this decade, he and his studio continued to paint monumental works for local contractors in Antwerp. The "Assumption of the Virgin Mary" (1625-1626) for Antwerp Cathedral is a good example.
Last Years of Peter Paul Rubens
Rubens' last decade was spent in or around Antwerp. Large works for foreign buyers still occupied him, such as the paintings for the ceiling of the Banqueting Hall of the Palace of Whitehall by Inigo Jones, but he also explored some more personal artistic possibilities.
In 1630, four years after the death of his first wife, the artist, then 53 years old, married the sixteen-year-old maiden Hélène Fourment. She inspired in him voluptuous figures in many paintings of the 1630s, including "The Feast of Venus" (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), "The Three Graces" (Prado, Madrid) and "The Trial of Paris" (Prado, Madrid - right).
In the latter painting, which was done for the Spanish court, the artist's young wife was recognized as the figure of Venus. In an intimate portrait of her, "Hélène Fourment wrapped in furs," also known as Het Pelsken, Rubens' wife is even depicted based on classical sculptures of the Venus Pudica, as in the Venus de Medici.
In 1635, Rubens bought an estate outside Antwerp, Castle Elewijt (or Steen), where he spent his last days. Landscapes, such as his Château de Steen with the hunter (National Gallery, London) and "Farmers returning from the field" (Pitti Gallery, Florence), reflect the more personal nature of many of his final works.
He also drew on the Dutch traditions of Pieter Bruegel the Elder to draw inspiration for works such as Flemish Kermis (ca. 1630; Louvre, Paris).
Rubens died of gout on May 30, 1640, and was buried in the Church of St. James in Antwerp. He left eight children, three with Isabella and five with Hélène, with the youngest born eight months after his death.
Peter Paul Rubens's Art
Rubens was a very prolific artist. His commissioned works were mostly on religious subjects, "historical" paintings, which included mythological subjects, and hunting scenes. He painted many portraits, especially of friends and self-portraits, and towards the end of his life, he painted several landscapes. He also designed several tapestries and prints, as well as his own house.
His drawings are very vigorous, but not as detailed; he also used oil studies to prepare for his works. He was one of the last artists to make consistent use of wood panels as a support medium, even for large works, and he also used canvas, especially when the work needed to be sent to distant places. For his altar pieces, he sometimes painted on slate to reduce problems with reflections.
Other works of Peter Paul Rubens
- Series of Maria de Medici
- Portrait of Helena Fourment
- Massacre of the Innocents
- Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth and Saint John
- Visitation
- Stories of the Founding of Rome
- The Aftermath of War
- The Fall of the Damned