Peter Paul Rubens epitomized the "gentleman" artist archetype.
Productive, professional, and moving with ease amongst both artistic and political circles,
he exemplified what it meant to be a proper courtly painter of the 17th century, elevating
his own life to the same standards of leisure and excellence afforded his patrons.
He famously fused a mastery of Flemish realism with the traditions of the Italian Renaissance
to produce a powerful and exuberant style that epitomized the immensely popular Baroque
movement, promoted by the Counter Reformation in efforts to re-establish the grandeur of
the Catholic Church.
This style emphasized movement, color, drama, and sensuality, and reinvigorated painting
with a new lust for life after a relatively conservative period for art.
Rubens' signature portrayal of the female form was coined "Rubenesque," a term that
remains widely recognized today to describe voluptuous nudes.
Peter Paul Rubens: the supreme Baroque painter of Northern Europe.
Peter Paul Rubens was born in the German city of Siegen, Nassau-Dillenburg, to Jan Rubens
and Maria Pypelincks.
Following the increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the
Duke of Alba’s reign of the Spanish Netherlands, Rubens’ Calvinist parents fled Antwerp for
Cologne in 1568.
Jan Rubens settled at the court of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange,
in Siegen in 1570, becoming first the legal advisor and then the lover of Anna.
In consequence of his father’s imprisonment for this affair, Rubens’ mother decided
to return to Cologne the following year.
In 1589, two years after his father’s death, Rubens moved with his mother to Antwerp, where
he was then raised as a Catholic.
Religion was to figure prominently in much of his work and the artist later became one
of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting.
In Antwerp, Rubens received a humanist education, studying Latin and classical literature, before starting his artistic apprenticeship
with Tobias Verhaeght at the age of fourteen.
Subsequently, he studied under two of the city’s leading painters of the time, the
late Mannerist artists Adam van Noort and Otto van Veen.
Much of Rubens’ earliest training involved copying the works of great masters, such as
woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger and Marcantonio Raimondi’s engravings after Raphael.
Rubens completed his education in 1598, at which time he entered the Guild of St. Luke
as an independent master in his own right.
1, Adam and Eve.
Held in the Rubenshuis in Antwerp, Adam and Eve, a panel depicting the fall from grace
of the biblical first humans, is one of the few surviving paintings from this period.
The panel demonstrates the influence of Otto van Veen, Rubens’ last and most influential
teacher.
The use of colour, with predominant cool hues of green and blue and the finely clear contours
are also reminiscent of van Veen’s work.
Rubens’ treatment of the figures and the landscape is notably static and precise, though
his forthcoming time in Italy would allow the young artist’s style greater freedom,
when his use of colour would become more expressive.
The poses of the figures are taken from a print of the subject by Marcantonio Raimondi
after Raphael, though Rubens gives them new life, with Adam more muscular and closely
observed, as the head is turned out of pure profile to allow more expression to be seen
in the face.
Eve is more idealised in form and beauty, perhaps hinting at the young artist’s limited
experience of painting the female nude.
She is softer and more sensuous than Vacnius’ figures, her raised hand enclosing the apple
as if she is about to bite it, while the close proximity of Adam’s open hand to her arm
stresses the tension of the moment.
Although little is known about the early history of the panel, it may be one of the works described
as ‘beautiful’, which according to Rubens’ mother’s will of 1606, he deposited in her
house before leaving for Italy in 1600.
2, The Judgement of Paris.
Housed in London’s National Gallery, this canvas depicts a scene from the beginning
of the mythical Trojan War cycle, concerning a beauty contest in which the shepherd Paris
must decide which of three goddesses is the fairest.
The prize is a golden apple, which the uninvited goddess of discord had tossed among the Olympian
guests at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.
Inscribed “To the fairest,” the apple was simultaneously claimed by Aphrodite, Hera
and Athena.
Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy, was asked to be the judge of a contest in which
he should award the apple to goddess he deemed the most beautiful.
Eventually, he gives the apple to Venus, goddess of love, as she had promised him the hand
of the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta.
It would be this event that would ultimately lead to the famous ten year war between the
Greeks and the Trojans.
The Judgement of Paris is a popular choice of subject in seventeenth century art and
Rubens himself painted several very different versions of the scene during his long career.
In the early National Gallery canvas, he adopts a rich palette and sensuous modelling of the
figures, demonstrating a blend of his Flemish heritage and his interest in Greek and Roman
antiquity.
Influenced by Michelangelo and Raphael, the artist also utilises the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio
and the colouring effects of Titian.
Destined to be a frequent subject of Rubens’ art, Venus is represented at the supreme moment
of her triumph, with no hint of the tragic cost of the judgment.
She is the preordained victor, crowned in beauty in an almost sacred manner.
His earliest rendering of the subject is based, once again, on an engraving by Marcantonio
Raimondi, after a lost composition by Raphael.
The choice of subject gave Rubens an opportunity to develop nude figures in a grand classical
manner, which technique he was to adopt often throughout his career.
As well as the three goddesses, accompanied with the heroic forms of Paris and Mercury,
the artist includes additional figures to the woodland scene.
Two satyrs, a nymph and a muscle-bound river god are depicted to the right of the image,
helping to reinforce the magical impression of the mythical world.
3, The Madonna della Vallicella, St. Gregory the Great and Saints.
From 1606 to 1608, Rubens was mostly in Rome, where, with the assistance of Cardinal Jacopo
Serra (the brother of Maria Pallavicini), he received his most important commission
to date for the High Altar of the city’s most fashionable church, Santa Maria in Vallicella,
also known as the Chiesa Nuova.
The subject of the piece was to be St. Gregory the Great and various important local saints
adoring an icon of the Virgin and Child.
The first version, a single canvas was immediately replaced by a second version on three slate
panels, allowing the actual miraculous holy image of the “Santa Maria in Vallicella”
to be revealed on important feast days by a removable copper cover, also painted by
the artist.
The painting presents several early saints and martyrs, including Papianus and Maurus
on the left; the regal virgin and martyr Domitilla is positioned on the right with her martyred
servants Nereus and Achilleus.
However, Gregory the Great commands the central place of the composition, as he gazes up to
heaven and the Dove of the Holy Spirit flies overhead.
The saint’s pose is reminiscent of Raphael’s Aristotle in the School of Athens, as he grips
a large folio of his writings.
On completion of the painting, due to problems of reflected light in the church sanctuary,
the masterpiece was barely visible from the ground.
Therefore, Rubens expanded the subject to fill three separate slate panels, creating
a tripartite, presenting attendant saints witnessing the apotheosis.
4, Samson and Delilah.
Completed in 1609 and held in London’s National Gallery, this large canvas was produced for
Rubens’ friend and patron, Nicolaas Rockox, a burgomaster of Antwerp, who is reported
to have installed the painting in the place of honour in his art gallery, above his fireplace.
The source material for the piece is John Milton’s drama Samson Agonistes, as well
as Handel’s oratorio based on the Samson story, providing ample scope for the artist
to demonstrate a full range of sensual and heroic contours.
Samson is depicted as having fallen asleep on Delilah’s knees, after finally giving
up the secret of his strength.
An old procuress aids Delilah with a candle, in keeping with the Bible’s suggestion that
Delilah was a prostitute.
She signals for a barber to cut Samson’s hair, therefore weakening the hero, whilst
outside a group of Philistine soldiers can be glimpsed, preparing to enter and seize
the sleeping hero.
Rubens’ use of chiaroscuro demonstrates his familiarity with the works of Caravaggio,
whose ground-breaking art he had encountered during his visit to Rome.
Rubens utilises multiple light sources to create an imposing display of flesh, delineating
the drama with great dexterity.
Delilah is presented ambiguously, at first appearing only as a professional prostitute,
aided by her procuress and seemingly adept at such subterfuge.
However, as her hand tenderly rests on Samson’s back, there is the suggestion of her deep
feeling for the man she is betraying.
Her unreadable expression is juxtaposed with the background sculpture of Venus and a blindfolded
Cupid, hinting that love is only silenced by requirement.
Study of Samson and Delilah - Cincinnati Art Museum
Samson and Delilah by Rubens can be seen hanging above the mantlepiece in Frans Francken's Banquet at the House of Burgomaster Rockox (between 1630 and 1635).