Peter Paul Rubens

The Flemish painter and diplomat Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was not only the unquestioned leader of the Flemish baroque school but one of the supreme geniuses in the history of painting.

During the last troubled decades of the 16th century the Flemish school of painting fell into a kind of tepid and uninventive mannerism which gave little promise of bringing forth a great master. Yet it was in this school that Peter Paul Rubens received his first training as an artist and acquired that belief in the humanistic values of classical antiquity that was to continue undiminished throughout his career.

Within his own lifetime Rubens enjoyed a European reputation which brought him commissions from Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany as well as from his homeland, the southern Netherlands. His boundless imagination, immense capacity for work, and sheer productivity were legendary. In 1621, when he was not yet 45 years old, an English visitor to Antwerp described him as "the master workman of the world." And at almost the same moment Rubens said of himself, without boasting, "My talent is such that no enterprise, however vast in number and in diversity of subjects, has surpassed my courage." It reveals something of the many-sidedness of this extraordinary man that, without interrupting his artistic activity, he was able to engage in a demanding career of public service and also to conduct an extensive correspondence with learned men on scholarly and archeological matters.

Jan Rubens, the painter's father, was a lawyer of Antwerp who, because he was a Calvinist, fled to Germany in 1568 to escape persecution at the hands of the Spaniards. In Cologne he entered into an adulterous relationship with the wife of William the Silent, Prince of Orange, as a result of which he was thrown into prison. Released after 2 years owing to the devoted and untiring efforts of his wife, Maria Pypelinckx, Jan Rubens was permitted to take up residence at Siegen in Westphalia. It was there that their second son, Peter Paul, was born on June 28, 1577. The family, which had now become Catholic, lived for some years in Cologne until Jan Rubens died in 1587, at which time his widow returned to Antwerp, bringing her three children with her.

After a period of schooling which included instruction in Latin and Greek, the young Rubens became a page to a noblewoman, Marguerite de Ligne, Countess of Lalaing. This early experience of court life, though he was glad to be released from it, was undoubtedly useful to the future artist, much of whose time was to be passed in aristocratic and royal circles. Returning to his home in Antwerp, he now decided to follow the profession of painter. He studied under three masters—Tobias Verhaecht, Adam van Noort, and Otto van Veen—and in 1598 was accepted as a master in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke, the painters' guild.

Italian Period, 1600-1608

In 1600 Rubens set out on a journey to Italy, where within a short time he entered the service of Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, whose palace housed a notable art collection. Since Rubens was not expected to remain always at the ducal court in Mantua, he found time to visit other cities in Italy, especially Rome, Florence, and Genoa. In Rome, Rubens completed his education as an artist, studying with unfailing enthusiasm the sculptures of antiquity and the paintings of the High Renaissance, especially those of Raphael and Michelangelo. During his first sojourn in the papal city (1601-1602) he painted three altarpieces for the Church of Sta Croce in Gerusalemme (now in the Hospital at Grasse).

In 1603 Duke Vincenzo sent Rubens on a diplomatic mission to Spain; here he made the impressive equestrian portrait of the Duke of Lerma and saw for the first time the Spanish royal collection, with its wealth of paintings by Titian.

Late in 1605 Rubens was again in Rome; he now contrived to remain there for almost 3 years. During this time he was commissioned to decorate the high altar of S. Maria in Vallicella—an extraordinary honor for a foreigner. His first solution, an altarpiece showing the Madonna and Child with St. Gregory and other saints (now in the Museum at Grenoble), did not make a good impression owing to unfavorable lighting conditions in the church, and he obligingly replaced it by a set of three pictures painted on slate. In October 1608, before this work had been unveiled, there came word that Rubens's mother was seriously ill, and the artist left at once for Antwerp. Though he did not know it at the time, he was never to see Italy again.

Antwerp Period, 1609-1621

Rubens arrived at his home to learn that his mother had died before he left Rome. Although it was surely his intention to return to Italy, he soon found reasons for remaining in Antwerp. The Archduke Albert and his consort, Isabella, the sovereigns of the Spanish Netherlands, appointed him court painter with special privileges. In October 1609 Rubens married Isabella Brant, and a year later he purchased a house in Antwerp. The charming painting Rubens and His Wife in the Honeysuckle Arbor was painted about this time.

The humanistic atmosphere of Antwerp that appealed so strongly to Rubens is epitomized in the so-called Four Philosophers. In reality this is a commemorative picture representing the late Justus Lipsius, the eminent classical scholar, with two of his pupils, one of whom is Rubens's brother Philip (also recently deceased); the artist himself stands a little to one side, an onlooker rather than a participant in the symposium.

The first big project to be undertaken after Rubens's return from Italy was the Raising of the Cross, a triptych (1609-1611) for the church of St. Walburga (now in the Cathedral of Antwerp). With this bold and intensely dramatic work Rubens at once established himself as the leading master of the city. It was followed by another triptych, equally large and no less successful, the Descent from the Cross (1611-1614) in the Cathedral. Rubens's baroque imagination found new outlets in subjects chosen from both the sacred and profane worlds: in the Great Last Judgment he conjured up an apocalyptic vision of the torments of the damned; the same tempestuous energy is encountered in the artist's hunting pieces, with their ferocious combats of men and wild beasts.

Rubens's workshop was now in full operation, and he was able, with the aid of his pupils and assistants, to achieve an astonishing output of pictures. The ablest and most brilliant of these assistants was Anthony Van Dyck, who entered his studio about 1617/1618 and who undoubtedly helped in the execution of a number of important commissions. Nevertheless it must not be concluded that the master took no responsibility for his paintings but was simply content to let them be carried out by his studio. The principal works exhibit no falling off in quality. Indeed the masterpieces crowd so closely upon one another at this time that it is difficult to select a few representative examples. Of the mythologies the Rape of the Daughters of Leucippusis one of the most dazzling. Among the finest of the ecclesiastical works are the two altarpieces glorifying the first saints of the Jesuit order, the Miracles of St. Ignatius of Loyola and the Miracles of St. Francis Xavier, which fairly overwhelm the observer by their huge scale, richness of color, and depth of feeling.

In 1620 Rubens was commissioned to execute a series of 39 ceiling paintings for the Jesuit church in Antwerp. It was the largest decorative cycle that the artist had yet undertaken, and as such it called into play all his powers of invention and organization. The entire complex of ceiling paintings was destroyed by fire in 1718.

International Fame, 1621-1630

The Jesuit cycle was followed by an even larger commission from France. In 1622 Rubens was in Paris to sign a contract for the decoration of two great galleries in the Luxembourg Palace, the residence of the queen mother, Marie de Médicis. The first of these projects, the incomparable series of 21 large canvases illustrating the life of Marie (now in the Louvre, Paris), was finished in 1625. The subject matter was decidedly unpromising, but Rubens, undaunted as always, succeeded in transforming the dreary history of the Queen into one of the most brilliant and most spectacular of all baroque decorative programs. Work on the second cycle, which was to deal with the life of Marie's late husband, King Henry IV, was repeatedly delayed, and Rubens at length gave up the project in disgust.

There were other decorative schemes to occupy Rubens's attention during this period. For King Louis XIII of France he designed the tapestry series, the History of Constantine the Great, and several years later the Infanta Isabella commissioned him to design an even larger tapestry cycle, the Triumph of the Eucharist, for the Convent of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid.

Despite his being involved in these and other great undertakings, Rubens found time to paint important altarpieces for churches in Antwerp: the Adoration of the Magi (now in the Antwerp Museum) was made for St. Michael's Abbey in 1624; the Assumption of the Virgin for the high altar of the Cathedral in 1626; and—perhaps the most beautiful of all—the Madonna and Saints (sometimes called the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine) for the church of the Augustinians in 1628. Some of his most memorable portraits also belong to these years. They range from the fresh and luminous Susanna Fourment, known as Le Chapeau de paille, to the stern and masterful Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel.

In Windsor Castle is the famous Self-portrait (1623/1624) which Rubens painted at the request of the Prince of Wales, later King Charles I of England. It shows a strong and handsome face, with bold moustaches and curling hair and beard; the broadbrimmed hat not only lends animation by its sweeping oval shape but serves also to conceal the artist's baldness (about which he seems to have been rather sensitive).

Rubens's diplomatic activity, which had begun some time earlier, reached a peak in the years 1628-1630, when he was instrumental in bringing about peace between England and Spain. As the agent of the Infanta, he went first to Spain, where in addition to carrying out his political duties he found a new and enthusiastic art patron in King Philip IV and renewed his acquaintance with the works of Titian in the royal collection. His mission to England was equally successful. Charles I knighted the artist-diplomat, and the University of Cambridge awarded him an honorary master of arts degree. Rubens returned to Antwerp in March 1630.

Last Years, 1630-1640

Isabella Brant, Rubens's first wife, had died in 1626. In December 1630 he married Helena Fourment, a girl of 16. Though he had hoped, on returning to Antwerp, to withdraw from political life, he was obliged to act once more as confidential agent for the Infanta in the frustrating and unsuccessful negotiations with the Dutch. At length he succeeded in being released from diplomatic employment. In 1635 he purchased a country estate, the Castle of Steen, situated some miles south of Antwerp, and henceforth divided his time between this rural retreat and his studio in town.

In the last decade of his life Rubens's art underwent a surprising expansion in variety and scope of subject matter. The enchanting Garden of Love, with its complex interweaving of the classical and the contemporary, may serve as an illustration. A new interest in nature, inspired perhaps by his residence in the country, found expression in a series of magnificent landscapes, among them the Castle of Steen. The portraits of this period, especially those of his wife, Helena, and their children, are characterized by informality and tender intimacy.

A lyrical quality pervades even the traditional Christian and classical subjects. In the Ildefonso Altarpiece the scene of the saint receiving a vestment from the Virgin Mary is transfigured by a silvery radiance. The secular counterpart to this work is the Feast of Venus, in which Rubens pays tribute both to the art of antiquity and to the paintings of Titian. The almost dreamlike poetry of the late mythologies is beautifully exemplified by the Judgment of Paris and the Three Graces, in which the opulent nudes seem to glow with light and color.

Rubens continued to carry out monumental commissions during his last decade. For Charles I he executed the ceiling paintings of the Banqueting House at Whitehall— the only large-scale decorative cycle by the artist that still remains in the place for which it was designed. In the Whitehall ceiling, which is a glorification of King James I and the Stuart monarchy, the artist profited from the experience gained in the decoration of the Jesuit church some years earlier. In 1635, when the new governor of the Netherlands, Cardinal Infante Ferdinand, made his "joyous entry" into Antwerp, Rubens was given the task of preparing the temporary street decorations. Swiftly mobilizing teams of artists and craftsmen to work from his designs, the master created a stupendous series of painted theaters and triumphal arches which surpassed all expectations by their magnificence. His last great project was the provision of a vast cycle of mythological paintings for the decoration of Philip IV's hunting lodge near Madrid, the Torre de la Parada.

Toward the end of his life Rubens was increasingly troubled by arthritis, which eventually compelled him to give up painting altogether. One of the most moving documents of the last years is the Self-portraitin Vienna, in which the master, though already touched by suffering, wears an air of calm and serenity. He died in Antwerp on May 30, 1640.

Further Reading

Rubens's letters are available in a first-rate translation by Ruth S.Magurn, The Letters of Peter Paul Rubens (1955). The standard biography is Max Rooses, Rubens, translated by H. Child (2 vols., 1904), which, although dated in some particulars, remains unsurpassed as a detailed, authoritative, and readable account of the artist and his times. Two shorter biographies, both handsomely illustrated, are recommended: C. V. Wedgwood, The World of Rubens, 1577-1640 (1967), and Christopher White, Rubens and His World (1968). Also enlightening is the lengthy essay by the 19th-century historian Jacob Burckhardt, Recollections of Rubens, translated by M. Hottinger, with an introduction and additional notes by H. Gerson (1950).

On Rubens's drawings, abundant information is in J. S. Held, Rubens: Selected Drawings (1959), and Ludwig Burchard and R.-A. d'Hulst, Rubens Drawings (2 vols., 1963). A scholarly discussion of the influences on Rubens is Wolfgang Stechow, Rubens and the Classical Tradition (1968). □

Rubens, Sir Peter Paul (b Siegen, Westphalia, 28 June 1577; d Antwerp, 30 May 1640). Flemish painter, draughtsman, designer, and diplomat, the greatest and most influential figure in Baroque art in northern Europe. He was born in Germany, the son of a scholarly lawyer from Antwerp who had left the city to escape religious persecution (he had Protestant sympathies). In 1587, soon after his father's death, the boy Rubens returned to Antwerp with his mother; he had been baptized a Calvinist in Germany, but he became a devout Catholic. From about 1590 he studied successively with three fairly undistinguished masters: Tobias Verhaecht (a distant relative), Adam van Noort, and Otto van Veen. The first two could teach him no more than the local tradition, but van Veen was a man of some culture, who had spent several years in Rome, and he no doubt inspired his pupil with a desire to visit Italy. Rubens became a master in the Antwerp painters' guild in 1598, and after working with van Veen for two more years he set out for Italy in 1600.

Very little of Rubens's work survives from before this date, and his style was largely formed in Italy, where he was based until 1608. Soon after his arrival he began working for Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, visiting most of the principal art centres of Italy to make copies for the ducal collection (he also went to Spain, 1603–4, when he accompanied gifts from Vincenzo to Philip III). The most significant parts of his stay in Italy were spent in Genoa and above all Rome. In Genoa he painted some stately aristocratic portraits (Marchesa Brigida Spinola-Doria, 1606, NG, Washington) that inspired van Dyck when he worked in the city, and in Rome he absorbed the lessons of the antique, the great masters of the Renaissance, and Annibale Carracci, basing his dignified and powerful style on these sources, but adding a distinctive energy and warmth of his own.

On learning that his mother was seriously ill, Rubens returned to Antwerp in 1608, but she died before he arrived. Italy had become his spiritual home (he usually signed himself ‘Pietro Pauolo’) and he considered returning for good, but his success in Antwerp was so immediate and great that he remained there, and in spite of his extensive travels later in his career he never saw Italy again. In 1609 he was appointed court painter to the Archduke Albert and his wife the Infanta Isabella, the Spanish governors of the Netherlands ( Isabella was the daughter of Philip II of Spain—see Habsburg); although the court was in Brussels, he was allowed to remain in Antwerp. In the same year he married the 17-year-old Isabella Brant, the daughter of an eminent Antwerp lawyer. The portrait of himself and his wife that he painted to mark the union (Alte Pin., Munich) gives a wonderful picture of Rubens on the threshold of his prodigious career—handsome, vigorous, and dashingly self-confident. In the next few years he established his reputation as the pre-eminent painter in northern Europe, his first two resounding successes being the huge triptychs of the Raising of the Cross and the Descent from the Cross (1610–11 and 1611–14, Antwerp Cathedral), which showed his mastery of history painting in the Grand Manner and the immense vitality of his style.

The demand for Rubens's work was extraordinary, and he was able to meet it only because he ran an extremely efficient studio. It is not known how many pupils or assistants he had, because as court painter he was exempt from registering them with the guild. The idea of his running a sort of picture factory has been exaggerated, but even a man of his seemingly inexhaustible intellectual and physical stamina (he habitually rose at 4 a.m.) could not carry out all the work involved in his massive output with his own hands. He both collaborated with established artists ( Jan Brueghel, Jordaens, Daniel Seghers, Snyders, and others) and retouched pictures by pupils, the degree of his intervention being reflected in the price. Generally his assistants (of whom van Dyck was the most illustrious) did much of the work between the initial oil sketch and the master's finishing touches. Modern taste has tended to admire these sketches and his drawings (in which his personal touch is evident in every stroke of brush, chalk, or pen) more than the large-scale works, but Rubens himself would surely have found this attitude hard to comprehend, for the sheer size and grandeur of the finished paintings gives them an extra, symphonic dimension. His capacity for collaboration and delegation was an expression of his warm and well-balanced personality as well as of his management skills; he was generous towards his fellow artists and in spite of his immense worldly success he aroused little professional jealousy.

Rubens not only painted virtually every type of subject then known, but also designed tapestries, book illustrations, and decorations for festivals, as well as giving visual directives for sculptors, metalworkers, and architects. ‘My talents are such’, he wrote in 1621, ‘that I have never lacked courage to undertake any design, however vast in size or diversified in subject.’ So huge was his output, indeed, that it is difficult to put a figure on it; the Corpus Rubenianum, the first comprehensive catalogue of his work using all the resources of modern scholarship, began publication in 1968 and is still incomplete (34 volumes are scheduled). His biggest commission in Flanders was for the decoration of the Jesuit church in Antwerp (a building he may also have had a hand in designing), but almost all his work there was destroyed by fire in 1718. From outside Flanders, those who sought his services included the royal families of France, England, and Spain. For Marie de Médicis (mother of Louis XIII of France) he did a series of 25 enormous paintings on her life (1622–5, Louvre, Paris); for Charles I of England (see Royal Collection) he painted a series of canvases representing the reign of his father James I (completed 1635) for the ceiling of the Banqueting House in London (the only one of his major decorative schemes still in situ); and for Philip IV of Spain he embarked in 1636 on a series of more than 100 mythological pictures for his hunting lodge, the Torre de la Parada, near Madrid (the series was incomplete when Rubens died and most of the finished paintings—executed by assistants from his modelli—were destroyed in 1710 when the building was sacked during the War of the Spanish Succession).

After the death of the Archduke Albert in 1621, Rubens became a trusted adviser to the Infanta Isabella. In that year a twelve-year truce between the Spanish Netherlands (Flanders) and its northern neighbour the Dutch Republic (Holland) came to an end and Rubens was entrusted with diplomatic missions aimed at securing a lasting peace between the countries. In this he was unsuccessful, but he did play an important role in the preliminary stage of ending hostilities between Spain (Flanders's overlord) and England (Holland's ally). He visited Spain in 1628–9 (when he met Velázquez) and England in 1629–30, and he was knighted by the kings of both countries ( Charles I in 1630, Philip IV in 1631) for his part in the peace negotiations. In his diplomatic role his courtly manners and linguistic skills were put to good advantage—apart from Flemish and Italian, he knew French, German, Latin, and Spanish.

Rubens found the political work a solace following the death of his beloved wife in 1626, but after he remarried in 1630 he had a desire to ‘remain home all my life’, and although he stayed reluctantly involved in diplomacy until the Infanta Isabella's death in 1633, he never went abroad again. His new wife, 16 when he married her, was Hélène Fourment, daughter of a rich silk merchant and the niece of his first wife. The second marriage was as happy as the first, and Rubens's love of his family shines through many of his late paintings (Hélène Fourment with Two of her Children, c.1636, Louvre). In 1635 he bought a country house, the Château de Steen, between Brussels and Malines, and in his final years he developed a new passion for painting landscapes—wonderfully ripe works that led Constable to extol ‘the joyous and animated character’ he impressed on ‘the level, monotonous scenery of Flanders’, and to declare that ‘In no branch of the art is Rubens greater than in landscape.’ Superb examples are in the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection, London.

In his lifetime Rubens was described as ‘prince of painters and painter of princes’ and at his death he was mourned not just as a supreme artist but also as one of the great men of the age. His influence in 17th-century Flanders was overwhelming, and it was spread elsewhere in Europe by his journeys abroad and by pictures exported from his workshop, and also through the numerous prints he commissioned of his work; Christoffel Jegher (see woodcut) and Paul Pontius (see line engraving) were among the outstanding printmakers he employed. In later centuries, his influence has also been immense, perhaps most noticeably in France, where his greatest admirers included Watteau, Delacroix (who called him ‘that Homer of painting, that father of warmth and enthusiasm’), and Renoir. Because of the unrivalled variety of his work, artists as different in temperament as these three could respond to it with equal passion.

Rubens, Sir Peter Paul (1577–1640). Flemish painter, draughtsman, designer, and diplomat, the greatest and most influential figure in Baroque art in northern Europe. He was born at Siegen in Westphalia, the son of a scholarly lawyer from Antwerp who moved to Germany to escape religious persecution (he had Protestant sympathies). In 1587, soon after his father's death, he returned to Antwerp with his mother; he had been baptized a Calvinist in Germany, but he became a devout Catholic. From about 1590 he studied successively with three fairly undistinguished masters: Tobias Verhaecht (a distant relative), Adam van Noort, and Otto van Veen. The first two could teach him no more than the local tradition, but van Veen was a man of some culture, who had spent several years in Rome, and he no doubt inspired his pupil with a desire to visit Italy. Rubens became a master in the Antwerp painters' guild in 1598, and after working with van Veen for two more years he set out for Italy in 1600. Very little of his early work survives, and his style was largely formed in Italy, where he was based until 1608. Soon after his arrival he began working for Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, visiting most of the principal art centres of Italy to make copies for the ducal collection (he also went to Spain, 1603–4, when he accompanied gifts from Vincenzo to Philip III). The most significant parts of his stay in Italy were spent in Genoa and above all Rome. In Genoa he painted some stately aristocratic portraits (Marchesa Brigida Spinola-Doria, 1606, NG, Washington) that inspired van Dyck when he worked in the city, and in Rome he absorbed the lessons of the Antique, the great masters of the Renaissance, and Annibale Carracci, basing his dignified and powerful style on these sources, but adding a distinctive energy and warmth of his own.

On learning that his mother was seriously ill, Rubens returned to Antwerp in 1608, but she died before he arrived. Italy had become his spiritual home (he usually signed himself ‘Pietro Pauolo’) and he considered returning for good, but his success in Antwerp was so immediate and great that he remained there, and in spite of his extensive travels later in his career he never saw Italy again. In 1609 he was appointed court painter to the Archduke Albert and his wife the Infanta Isabella, the Spanish governors of the Netherlands (Isabella was the daughter of Philip II of Spain—see Habsburg); he was allowed to remain in Antwerp, even though the court was in Brussels. In the same year he married the 17-year-old Isabella Brant, the daughter of an eminent Antwerp lawyer. The portrait of himself and his wife that he painted to mark the union (Alte Pin., Munich) gives a wonderful picture of Rubens on the threshold of his prodigious career—handsome, vigorous, and dashingly self-confident. In the next few years he established his reputation as the pre-eminent painter in northern Europe, his first two resounding successes being the huge triptychs of the Raising of the Cross and the Descent from the Cross (1610–11 and 1611–14, Antwerp Cathedral), which showed his mastery of history painting in the Grand Manner and the immense vigour of his style.

The demand for Rubens's work was extraordinary, and he was able to meet it only because he ran an extremely efficient studio. It is not known how many pupils or assistants he had, because as court painter he was exempt from registering them with the guild. The idea of his running a sort of picture factory has been exaggerated, but even a man of his seemingly inexhaustible intellectual and physical stamina (he habitually rose at 4 a.m.) could not carry out all the work involved in his massive output with his own hands. He both collaborated with established artists ( Jan ‘Velvet’ Brueghel, Jordaens, Daniel Seghers, Snyders, and others) and retouched pictures by pupils, the degree of his intervention being reflected in the price. Generally his assistants (of whom van Dyck was the most illustrious) did much of the work between the initial oil sketch and the master's finishing touches. Modern taste has tended to admire these sketches and his drawings (in which his personal touch is evident in every stroke of brush, chalk, or pen) more than the large-scale works, but Rubens himself would surely have found this attitude hard to comprehend, for the sheer size and grandeur of the finished paintings gives them an extra, symphonic dimension. His capacity for collaboration and delegation was an expression of his warm and well-balanced personality as well as of his management skills; he was generous towards his fellow artists and in spite of his immense worldly success he aroused little professional jealousy.

Rubens not only painted virtually every type of subject then known, but also designed tapestries, book illustrations, and decorations for festivals, as well as giving visual directives for sculptors, metalworkers, and architects. ‘My talents are such’, he wrote in 1621, ‘that I have never lacked courage to undertake any design, however vast in size or diversified in subject.’ So huge was his output, indeed, that it is difficult to put a figure on it; the Corpus Rubenianum, the first complete catalogue of his work using all the resources of modern scholarship, began publication in 1968 and is still incomplete (34 volumes are scheduled). His biggest commission in Flanders was for the decoration of the Jesuit church in Antwerp (a building he may also have had a hand in designing), but almost all his work there was destroyed by fire in 1718. From outside Flanders, those who sought his services included the royal families of France, England, and Spain. For Marie de Médicis (mother of Louis XIII of France) he did a series of 25 enormous paintings on her life (1622–5, Louvre, Paris); for Charles I of England he painted a series of canvases representing the reign of his father James I (completed 1635) for the ceiling of the Banqueting House in London (the only one of his major decorative schemes still in situ); and for Philip IV of Spain he produced more than a hundred mythological and animal pictures (1636–8, mainly executed by collaborators) for a royal hunting lodge, the Torre de la Parada, near Madrid. Some of the paintings were destroyed in 1710 when the building was sacked during the War of the Spanish Succession, but many are now in the Prado, Madrid, and more than fifty of Rubens's oil sketches also survive.

After the death of the Archduke Albert in 1621, Rubens became a trusted adviser to the Infanta Isabella. In that year a twelve-year truce between the Spanish Netherlands (Flanders) and its northern neighbour the Dutch Republic (Holland) came to an end and Rubens was entrusted with diplomatic missions aimed at securing a lasting peace between the countries. In this he was unsuccessful, but he did play an important role in the preliminary stage of ending hostilities between Spain (Flanders' overlord) and England (Holland's ally). He visited Spain in 1628–9 (when he met Velázquez) and England in 1629–30, and he was knighted by the kings of both countries ( Charles I in 1630, Philip IV in 1631) for his part in the peace negotiations. In his diplomatic role his courtly manners and linguistic skills were put to good advantage—apart from Flemish and Italian, he knew French, German, Latin, and Spanish. Rubens found the political work a solace following the death of his beloved wife in 1626, but after he remarried in 1630 he had a desire to ‘remain home all my life’, and although he stayed reluctantly involved in diplomacy until Isabella's death in 1633, he never went abroad again. His new wife, 16 when he married her, was Hélène Fourment, daughter of a rich silk merchant and the niece of his first wife. The second marriage was as happy as the first, and Rubens's love of his family shines through many of his late paintings (Hélène Fourment with Two of her Children, c.1636, Louvre). In 1635 he bought a country house, the Château de Steen, between Brussels and Malines, and in his final years he developed a new passion for painting landscapes—wonderfully ripe works that led Constable to extol ‘the joyous and animated character’ he impressed on ‘the level, monotonous scenery of Flanders’ and to declare that ‘In no branch of the art is Rubens greater than in landscape.’ Superb examples are in the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection, London.

In his lifetime Rubens was described as ‘prince of painters and painter of princes’ and at his death he was mourned not just as a supreme artist but also as one of the great men of the age. His influence in 17th-century Flanders was overwhelming, and it was spread elsewhere in Europe by his journeys abroad and by pictures exported from his workshop, and also through the numerous engravings he commissioned of his work. In later centuries, his influence has also been immense, perhaps most noticeably in France, where his greatest admirers included Watteau, Delacroix (who called him ‘that Homer of painting, that father of warmth and enthusiasm’), and Renoir. Because of the unrivalled variety of his work, artists as different in temperament as these three could respond to it with equal enthusiasm.

Peter Paul Rubens

Born: June 28, 1577
Siegen, Westphalia, Germany
Died: May 30, 1640
Antwerp, Belgium
Flemish painter and diplomat

The Flemish painter and diplomat Peter Paul Rubens was one of the supreme geniuses in the history of painting.

Childhood

Peter Paul Rubens was born to Jan Rubens and Maria Pypelinckx on June 28, 1577. Jan Rubens was a lawyer of Antwerp who, because of his religious preference, fled to Germany in 1568 to escape persecution. In Cologne, Germany, he had an affair with the wife of William the Silent, Prince of Orange, and as a result he was thrown into prison. Released after two years, due to the devoted efforts of his wife, Jan Rubens was allowed to live in Siegen, in Westphalia, Germany, where Peter Paul was born. The family lived for some years in Cologne until Jan Rubens died in 1587, at which time his widow returned to Antwerp, Belgium, bringing her three children with her.

After a period of schooling which included instruction in Latin and Greek, the young Rubens became a messenger to a noble-woman, Marguerite de Ligne, Countess of Lalaing. This early experience of court life, though he was glad to be released from it, was undoubtedly useful to the future artist, much of whose time would be passed in noble and royal circles. Returning to his home in Antwerp, he had decided to be a painter. He studied under three masters—Tobias Verhaecht, Adam van Noort, and Otto van Veen (1556–1629)—and in 1598 was accepted as a master in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke, the painters' guild, or association.

Italian Period, 1600–1608

In Rome, Italy, Rubens completed his education as an artist, studying with unfailing enthusiasm the sculptures of antiquity (the period before the sixth century) and especially the paintings of Raphael (1483–1520) and Michelangelo (1475–1564). During his first stay in Rome, from 1601 to 1602, he painted three altarpieces for the Church of Sta Croce in Gerusalemme (now in the Hospital at Grasse).

Late in 1605 Rubens was again in Rome; he decided to remain there for almost three years. During this time he was commissioned (hired) to decorate the high altar of Santa Maria in Vallicella—an extraordinary honor for a foreigner. His first solution, an altarpiece showing the Madonna and Child with St. Gregory and other saints (now in the Museum at Grenoble), did not make a good impression owing to unfavorable lighting conditions in the church, and he replaced it by a set of three pictures painted on slate. In October 1608, before this work had been unveiled, there came word that Rubens's mother was seriously ill, and the artist left at once for Antwerp. Though he did not know it at the time, he was never to see Italy again.

Antwerp period, 1609–1621

Rubens arrived at his home to learn that his mother had died before he left Rome. Although it was surely his intention to return to Italy, he soon found reasons for remaining in Antwerp. The Archduke Albert, the acting ruler of the Spanish Netherlands, appointed him court painter with special privileges. In October 1609 Rubens married Isabella Brant, and a year later he purchased a house in Antwerp. The charming painting Rubens and His Wife in the Honeysuckle Arbor was painted about this time.

The first big project to be undertaken after Rubens's return from Italy was the Raising of the Cross (1609–1611), a triptych, or three-paneled piece, for the church of St. Walburga (now in the Cathedral of Antwerp). With this bold and intensely dramatic work Rubens at once established himself as the leading master of the city. It was followed by another triptych, equally large and no less successful, the Descent from the Cross (1611–1614) in the Cathedral.

Rubens's workshop was now in full operation, and he was able, with the aid of his pupils and assistants, to achieve an astonishing output of pictures. The most brilliant of his assistants was Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641), who entered his studio about 1617 or 1618 and who helped in the execution of a number of important commissions.

In 1620 Rubens was commissioned to execute a series of thirty-nine ceiling paintings for the Jesuit church in Antwerp. It was the largest decorative cycle that the artist had yet undertaken, and as such it called into play all his powers of invention and organization. The entire complex of ceiling paintings was destroyed by fire in 1718.

International fame, 1621–1630

In 1622 Rubens was in Paris, France, to sign a contract for the decoration of two great galleries in the Luxembourg Palace, the residence of the queen mother, Marie de' Medici (1573–1642). The first of these projects, the incomparable series of twenty-one large canvases illustrating the life of Marie (now in the Louvre, Paris), was finished in 1625. The subject matter was decidedly unpromising, but Rubens succeeded in transforming the dreary history of the queen into a brilliant and spectacular one.

There were other decorative schemes to occupy Rubens's attention during this period. For King Louis XIII (1601–1643) of France he designed the tapestry series, the History of Constantine the Great, and several years later Infanta Isabella commissioned him to design an even larger tapestry cycle, the Triumph of the Eucharist, for the Convent of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid, Spain.

Rubens's diplomatic (having to do with international relations) activity, which had begun some time earlier, reached a peak in the years from 1628 to 1630, when he played an important part in bringing about peace between England and Spain. As the agent of the Infanta (the daughters of Spanish rulers), he went first to Spain, where in addition to carrying out his political duties he found a new and enthusiastic art patron (a supporter) in King Philip IV (1605–1665). His mission to England was equally successful. Charles I (1600–1649) knighted the artist-diplomat, and the University of Cambridge awarded him an honorary master of arts degree. Rubens returned to Antwerp in March 1630.

Last years, 1630–1640

Isabella Brant, Rubens's first wife, had died in 1626. In December 1630 he married Helena Fourment, a girl of sixteen. Though he had hoped, on returning to Antwerp, to withdraw from political life, he acted once more as confidential agent for the Infanta in the frustrating and unsuccessful negotiations with the Dutch. At length he succeeded in being released from diplomatic employment. In 1635 he purchased a country estate, the Castle of Steen, located some miles south of Antwerp, and from there on divided his time between this country retreat and his studio in town.

In 1635, when the new governor of the Netherlands, Cardinal Infante Ferdinand, visited Antwerp, Rubens was given the task of preparing the temporary street decorations. Swiftly bringing together teams of artists and craftsmen to work from his designs, the master created an amazing series of painted theaters and victorious arches, which were far greater than expected in their magnificence. His last great project was a vast cycle of mythological (having to do with stories that are handed down through generations) paintings for the decoration of Philip IV's hunting lodge near Madrid, the Torre de la Parada.

Rubens was increasingly troubled by arthritis (a persistent swelling of the joints) toward the end of his life, which eventually persuaded him to give up painting altogether. One of the most moving paintings of the last years is the self-portrait in Vienna, in which the master, though already touched by suffering, wears an air of calm and peace. He died in Antwerp on May 30, 1640.

For More Information

Lescourret, Marie-Anne. Rubens: A Double Life. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993.

McLanathan, Richard. Peter Paul Rubens. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1995.

Oppenheimer, Paul. Rubens: A Portrait. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2002.

Scribner, Charles, III. Peter Paul Rubens. New York: Abrams, 1989.

White, Christopher. Peter Paul Rubens: Man & Artist. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.

Rubens, Peter Paul (1577–1640), Flemish painter, the chief northern exponent of the Baroque. In 1629 Rubens visited England, where he was knighted and commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Banqueting House. His style was based on the great Italian masters, but in later life he painted for his own pleasure landscapes with a new feeling for the country. One of the few English writers to appreciate his full stature was G. Eliot, who wrote from Munich (1858, in a letter), ‘His are such real, breathing men and women.… What a grand, glowing, forceful thing life looks in his pictures.’