Art Gallery

Rubens, Peter Paul (1577 Siegen -1640 Antwerp), Flemish painter, considered the most important of the 17th century. His style defined the animated, sensuous aspects of baroque painting. Rubens was born in Siegen, Westphalia (now in Germany). His father was a Calvinist and so had to live in exile from Antwerp in 1587, where he was brought up and educated in the Catholic faith. At the age of fourteen he entered the household of a Flemish princess as a page, and later studied under Tobisa Verhaecht, a landscape painter, then under Adam van Noort, and the last four years until 1600 under Otho Venius. After his father died, he and his family moved to Antwerp. In 1598, he was accorded the rank of master painter of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke.

In 1600 he visited Italy, where he was inspired by the paintings of Titian, Paolo Veronese, and Tintoretto, as well as by works of Michelangelo, Raphael, and ancient Greco-Roman sculpture. Gradually, he became an artist of international repute. In Italy Rubens had begun working in the baroque style and while in Venice attracted the attention of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga, finally taking up residence at his court in Mantua. Rubens accompanied the duke on his travels to Florence and Rome, and was sent by him with gifts and paintings on a diplomatic mission to Spain in 1603.

In Venice, Rome and Genoa Rubens copied Titiaan, Tintoretto, and Raphaël, and also the works of contemporaries, including Caravaggio, the Carracci and Elsheimer. Having already executed several large commissions in Italy, he returned as a successful painter to Antwerp in 1608. There he was appointed court painter in 1609 to the Regent Albert and Isabella, receiving an annual salary of 500 guilders, and was exempted from the guild's restrictions and taxation. He was considered the foremost painter of Flanders. The number of pictures requested from Rubens was so large that he established an enormous workshop, in which he would execute the initial sketch and final touches while his apprentices completed all the intermediary steps.

He received permission to establish himself outside the regent's residence, which was in Brussels, and married Isabella Brant, daughter of the town clerk. In 1610 he built himself a large house and studio. During his Antwerp period, until 1622, he received a flood of commissions from the church, state and nobility, employing in his large workshop many pupils who later became famous to help with the work. They included van Dyck, Jordaens, Snyders and Cornelis Vos. The Gobelin factory produced tapestries after sketches, and engravers used his paintings, disseminating the "Rubens style" all over Europe.

His largest commission was for a series of 21 paintings of the life of the Queen Dowager Marie de'Medici for the Palais Luxembourg in Paris, for which he received a fee of 20,000 ducats. Between 1623 and 1631 he travelled frequently on diplomatic missions, visiting London and Madrid, where he received peerages from both Charles I of England and Philip IV of Spain. Between 1622 and 1630 Rubens's role as a diplomat was equal to his importance as a painter. In 1628 the Flemish viceroys sent him to Spain, where he received several commissions from King Philip IV, who made him secretary of his Privy Council. Rubens also was knighted by King Charles I of England, for whom he executed several paintings.

The most important painter of the International Baroque thus became the first artistic aristocrat whose fame and wealth constantly increased. Isabella Brant died in 1626; a year later he sold his great art collection, which included works by Raphaël, Titian, Tintoretto and himself, for 100,000 guilders to the Duke of Buckingham, and in 1630 he married the 16-year old Helene Fourment, whom immortalized in many portraits. After the death of Queen Isabella he gradually withdrew from court and bought Steen Castle near Mechelen. His last big commission was the decoration of the Spanish king's hunting lodge, Torre de la Parada near Madrid, which he designed but was no longer able to carry out himself. Rubens, the great Baroque master, successfully brought together in his style northern and Flemish elements of his period with those of Italy. His influence on the painters of his century was enormous, as it was on sculpture and architecture. His sometimes gigantic "pictorial inventions", which do not always appeal to today's taste, were pioneering in composition, design and the art of colour, taking as subject all major themes of painting: Biblical scenes and lives of the saints, mythology and subjects of Antiquity, and also peasant scenes, landscapes and portraiture. "My talent is such", he wrote, "that the undertaking, however large and varied in theme, has ever gone beyond my self-confidence."

From 1630 until his death, Rubens remained mainly in Antwerp, primarily at Castle Steen, his country residence. His whole career is summarized in The Judgment of Paris (1635?, National Gallery, London). In this painting luxuriant color, glowing light and shade, and an elegant composition all enhance the narrative's meaning: Paris's selection of the most beautiful goddess.