Pieter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) Flemish painter
Belgian baroque painter Pieter Paul Rubens (in the English speaking world mostly referred to as Peter Paul) was the most celebrated northern European artist of his day. Rubens' childhood echoed the intense religious friction of the 16th century, which was to be of crucial significance in his artistic career. Dad Rubens was an ardently Calvinist Antwerp lawyer who had to flee to Siegen in Germany in 1568 to escape religious persecution. Pieter Paul was born in this Westphalian town. After his father's death in 1587 the family moved back to Antwerp, where Pieter Paul was raised a Roman Catholic by his mother and received his early training as an artist.
By the age of 21 he was a master painter. His artistic and religious views led him to Italy. Upon arriving in Venice in 1600, he fell under the spell of the bright colour and grand forms of Titian. From 1600 to 1608 Rubens was court painter to the duke of Mantua. Here he digested the lessons of the other Italian Renaissance masters.
The Flemish painter also spent a lot of time in Rome, where he created his first widely acknowledged masterworks in some altarpieces. Rubens returned to Antwerp after eight years when his mother died. With his reputation already established, he soon became the leading artistic figure in the Spanish Netherlands. By combining the realistic tradition of Flemish painting and the imaginative freedom and classical themes of Italian Renaissance painting, he fundamentally changed northern European painting.
Ripened as a painter, upon his return to Flanders Rubens executed and supervised an enormous number of works that spanned all areas of painting. His unquestionable religious perspective, along with a deep involvement in public affairs, lent Rubens' work a conservative and public cast, sharply contrasting with the private and secular paintings of his great Dutch contemporary Rembrandt. His Roman Catholic belief however never conflicted with his passion for antiquity. Venus and Mary are almost compatible in the Fleming's art.
To cope with the enormous productions, Rubens set up a studio along the lines of Italian painters' workshops, in which skilled artists executed paintings from the master's sketches. Rubens's personal contribution to the over two thousand works produced by this studio varied considerably from work to work. Equipped with exceptional energy, he would be up by 4 in the morning and could paint while dictating a letter and carrying on a conversation with a visitor, all at the same time. Among his most famous assistants were Anthony van Dyck and Frans Snijders.
Rubens was more than a painter. His involvement in society and his fluency in French, Flemish, German, Italian, Latin and Spanish led to his royal patrons Archduke Ferdinand and Infanta Isabella, Spanish viceroys of the Netherlands, giving him ambassadorial duties. Pieter Paul Rubens The Diplomat conducted peace negotiations in 1625, aimed at ending the war between the Spanish Netherlands and the Dutch Republic. He also helped arranging a peace treaty between England and Spain (1629-30). British king Charles I was so stunned with Rubens' efforts that he knighted the Flemish painter.
In the last stage of his life, Rubens turned more and more to portraits, genre scenes, and landscapes. Despite recurring strikes of arthritis, he remained an extraordinarily prolific artist throughout his last years. Rubens died in 1640.
A list of many museums with works by Rubens (thanks to artcyclopedia.com):
- Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp: The Adoration of the Magi
- Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Cimon and Pero (around 1630), Entombment (around 1615)
- Mauritshuis, The Hague: The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man (1615)
- Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam: Nereid and Triton, (16360
- Museum Bredius, The Hague
- Le Louvre, Paris: Helena Fourment with a Carriage (around 1639, Helena Fourment was his wife),
Young Woman Kneeling (around 1630-33), Proclamation of the Regency of Maria de Médici (1622-25), The Village Fête, (around 1635-38)
- Musée des Augustins, Toulouse: Christ Crucified between Two Thieves (around 1635)
- Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux
- Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen
- Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon: The Virgin Presenting the Infant Jesus to Saint Francis of Assisi
- National Gallery, London, A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning, A Roman Triumph, A Shepherd with his Flock in a Woody Landscape, and many more
- British Museum, London
- The Wallace Collection, London
- Dulwich Picture Gallery, London: Venus, Mars and Cupid (1630-35)
- National Portrait Gallery, London
- Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
- Akademie der Bildenden Künst, Vienna: The Judgment of Paris, and many more
- E.G. Bührle Collection, Zürich: St. Augustine (1620)
- Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf: Venus and Adonis (around 1615)
- Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt
- Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig: Judith with the Head of Holofernes
- Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome: Romulus and Remus (1614)
- Galleria Borghese, Rome: The Deposition, St Sebastian Cared for by the Angels
- Prado, Madrid: The Adoration of the Magi, The Three Graces, The Andrians, which is copied from Titian's painting of the same subject
- Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid: Venus and Cupid (1606-11)
Saint George and the Dragon
- Göteborg Museum of Art: Henry IV of France at the Siege of Amiens
- Nationalmuseum, Stockholm: The Bacchanalia on Andros
- State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Portrait of the Daughter of Balthasar Gerbier d'Ouvilly (1629), and many more
- National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest: Portrait of a Lady (1606-08)
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: A Forest at Dawn with a Deer Hunt (around 1635), Wolf and Fox Hunt (1615-21), Venus and Adonis (1630s),
Bust of the Pseudo-Seneca (before 1626)
- J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
- Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota: The Union of England and Scotland (1630)
- National Gallery of Art, Washington DC: The Assumption of the Virgin (around 1626), Daniel in the Lions' Den (around 1613/1615), Decius Mus Addressing the Legions (probably 1617), The Fall of Phaeton (around 1605), and many more
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: The Sacrifice of the Old Covenant (around 1626)
- Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco
- North Carolina Museum of Art: The Holy Family with St. Anne (around 1635)
- Chrysler Museum, Virginia
- Hyde Collection Art Museum, Glens Falls: Head of a Negro (around 1620)
- Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, Massachusetts
- Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts: Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel (around 1629-30)
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio
- Cummer Museum of Art, Jacksonville, Florida: The Lamentation of Christ (1605)
- Dayton Art Institute: Study Heads of an Old Man
- Detroit Institute of Arts
- Ringling Museum of Art, Florida
- Timken Museum of Art, San Diego
- San Diego Museum of Art
- Bob Jones University Museum & Gallery
- Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Maine: The Death of Dido (around 1601-06)
- Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires: The Holy Family with Saint Isabel and Saint John (around 1630-32)
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
- National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
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