Rubens, Peter Paul (1577–1640)

Flemish painter whose elaborate religious and mythological scenes, sensuous portraits, and detailed historical works marked a transition from the Renaissance period to the Baroque. Born in Siegen, Germany, he was the son of a Calvinist Protestant family that fled persecution in their hometown and took refuge in the city of Cologne. In 1589 he moved to the city of Antwerp with his widowed mother, and converted to the Catholic faith. He studied with Tobias Verhaeght, a minor artist, and several other artists of Antwerp, and joined the city's painters guild in 1598.

Like many northern European artists, Rubens looked to Italy for instruction in new styles and methods of painting. He traveled to Venice in 1600 and studied the works of Veronese, Titian, and Tintoretto. Soon afterward he joined the ducal court at Mantua and won the patronage of Vincenzo Gonzaga, the ruler of the city, who helped him travel to Rome, where the young artist found inspiration in the frescoes of Michelangelo Buonarroti and Raphael and the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo da Caravaggio. Rubens served Mantua as a diplomat as well, traveling to Spain and the court of King Philip III on a mission in 1603. In Spain he began painting portraits, a medium he continued when he returned to Italy.

In Rome Rubens won commissions to paint altarpieces for the Church of Santa Croce and Santa Maria in Vallicella, which he adorned with a picture of the medieval Pope Gregory admiring an icon of the Virgin Mary. Having well absorbed Italian humanism and classicism, he returned to Antwerp in 1609 and began to transform northern European painting. He became a court painter for the governor of the Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium) and built a studio and workshop in Antwerp, where he completed several important altarpieces for local churches. He became a renowned print designer, working in both metal and wood to create illustrations and title pages for books. A devout Roman Catholic, he showed reverence for traditional biblical scenes but also used shadow and contrasting, vivid colors to give his pictures a dramatic and very modern look.

By the 1620s Rubens was known throughout Europe. His workshop in Antwerp trained several leading painters, including Anthony Van Dyck. Rubens had several assistants complete his design for a major painting, The Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which was raised in the cathedral of Antwerp. He was also commissioned by Marie de Médicis, widow of the French king Henri IV, to create a series of works describing her life. The twenty-one paintings of this cycle were to hang in the royal Palace of Luxembourg.

Rubens was also trusted with diplomatic missions by the king of Spain, who sought an agreement with the Dutch Netherlands that would keep Spain in control of its colony. He helped settle a treaty between England and Spain in 1630. This work earned him the honor of a knighthood from King Philip IV of Spain as well as King Charles I of England. For Charles I he created Allegory of Peace and War, a huge ceiling painting done for London's Whitehall Palace.

In the 1630s Rubens completed several of his most famous creations, including The Feast of Venus, The Three Graces, and The Judgment of Paris. Inspired by the country around Antwerp and his estate, the Chateau de Steen, he mastered landscape painting in works such as Farmers Returning from the Fields, which took their themes and style from the works of Pieter Brueghel.

See Also: Brueghel, Pieter; Médicis, Marie de; Titian