Peter Paul Rubens - Complete Works of Peter Paul Rubens

Sir Peter Paul Rubens

(1577-1640)

Contents

Delphi Classics 2015

Version 1

Masters of Art Series

Sir Peter Paul Rubens

By Delphi Classics, 2015

Siegen, a German city in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia Rubens birthplace

Possible self-portrait of Rubens as a young man

THE HIGHLIGHTS

In this section, a sample of some of Rubens most celebrated works is provided, with concise introductions, special detail reproductions and additional biographical images.

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 Albas 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 fathers imprisonment for this affair, Rubens mother decided to return to Cologne the following year. In 1589, two years after his fathers 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 citys 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 Raimondis 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.

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 Veens work. Rubens treatment of the figures and the landscape is notably static and precise, though his forthcoming time in Italy would allow the young artists 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 artists 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 Adams 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 mothers will of 1606, he deposited in her house before leaving for Italy in 1600.

Detail

Detail

Detail

Adam and Eve by Marcantonio Raimondi, 1512-1514

Housed in Londons 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.