صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

RSHEFF. See RZHEFF.

RUBBER. See INDIA-RUBBER.

RUBENS, PETER FAUL (1577-1640), the most eminent representative of Flemish art, and one of the greatest painters of any school, was born very probably at Siegen, in Westphalia, on the 29th of June 1577. Till some thirty years ago Cologne might still claim the honour of having been the master's birthplace; the Rhenish city is mentioned by Rubens himself, in one of his letters, as closely connected with his childhood, and through his father's epitaph we learn that for more than nineteen years Cologne was the family's place of refuge amid the disturbances prevailing in the Low Countries. This, however, has been proved to be but part of the truth, and, if Rubens's parents certainly during several years did live at Cologne, they also resided elsewhere, and that for reasons so strong that both wife and husband might well desire to see them for ever buried in secrecy.

Although of humble descent, his father was a druggist, -John Rubens was a man of learning.. He had studied law at home and abroad, and became councillor and alderman in his native town (1562). A Catholic by birth, it was not long before he became, like many of his countrymen, a zealous upholder of the Reformation, and we even find him spoken of by a contemporary as "le plus docte Calviniste qui fust pour lors au Bas Pays." After the plundering of the Antwerp churches in 1566, the magistrates were called upon for a justification. While openly they declared themselves devoted sons of the church, a list of the followers of the Reformed creed, headed by the name of Anthony Van Stralen, the burgomaster, got into the hands of the duke of Alva. This was a sentence of death for the magistrates, and John Rubens lost no time in quitting Spanish soil, ultimately settling at Cologne (October 1568), with his wife and four children.

In his new residence he became legal adviser to Anne of Saxony, the second wife of the prince of Orange, William the Silent. Before long it was discovered that their relations were not purely of a business kind. Thrown into the dungeons of Dillenburg, Rubens lingered there for many months, his wife, Maria Pypelincx, never relaxing her endeavours to get the undutiful husband restored to freedom. Two years elapsed before the prisoner was released, and then only to be confined to the small town of Siegen. Here he lived with his family, from 1573 to 1578, and here most probably Maria Pypelincx gave birth to Philip, afterwards town-clerk of Antwerp, and Peter Paul. A year after (May 1578) the Antwerp lawyer got leave to return to Cologne, where he died on the 18th of March 1587, after having, it is said, returned to Catholicism. As there are at Siegen no records going back to the 16th century, the facts relating to the birth of Peter Paul Rubens must, of course, remain conjectural, but his mother certainly was at Siegen a few days before his birth, for we find her there, petitioning in favour of John Rubens, on June 14, 1577.

Rubens went to Antwerp with his mother when he was scarcely ten years of age, and made good progress in his classical studies, which he had begun with the Jesuits at Cologne. An excellent Latin scholar, he was also proficient in French, Italian, English, German, and Dutch. Part of his boyhood he spent as a page in the household of the countess of Lalaing, in Brussels; but, tradition adds, and we may well believe, the youth's disposition was such as to induce his mother to allow him to follow his proper vocation, choosing as his master Tobias Verhaecht, who was in some way connected with the family. Not the slightest trace of this first master's influence can be detected in Rubens's works. Not so with Adam Van Noort, to whom the young man was next apprenticed. Van Noort,

whose aspect of energy is well known through Van Dyck's beautiful etching, was the highly esteemed master of numerous painters,-among them Van Balen, Sebastian Vrancx, and Jordaens, later his son-in-law. His pictures are almost exclusively to be found in Antwerp churches.

Rubens remained with Van Noort for the usual period of four years, thereafter studying under Otto Vonius or Van Veen, a gentleman by birth, a most distinguished Latin scholar, and a painter of very high repute. He was a native of Leyden, and only recently settled in Antwerp, but the town gave him numerous commissions of importance. Though Rubens never adopted his style of painting, the tastes of master and pupil had much in common, and some pictures by Otto Vonius can be pointed out as having inspired Rubens at a more advanced period. For example, the Magdalene anointing Christ's Feet, painted for the cathedral at Malaga, and now at the Hermitage in St Petersburg, closely resembles in composition the very important work of Otto Vonius in the church at Bergues near Dunkirk.

In 1598, Adam Van Noort acting as dean of the Antwerp guild of painters, Rubens was officially recognized as "master," that is, was allowed to work independently and receive pupils. We have no means of forming an idea of his style at this early period, two years before hic journey to Italy, but even the somewhat later works found at Genoa, Mantua, and Rome differ considerably from what may be termed the Rubenesque.

From 1600 to the latter part of 1608 Rubens belonged to the household of Vincenzo Gonzaga, duke of Mantua. Few princes in Italy surpassed the Gonzagas in splendour. For them Mantegna, Giulio Romano, Titian, and Primaticcio had produced some of their most admired works, and their now deserted palaces still bear traces of the richest decoration. To the Mantuan collection the Pitti palace, the Louvre, and the royal galleries of England owe some of their noblest specimens of Italian art. How Rubens came to be engaged at Mantua has not been explained. The duke, it is known, spent some time at Venice in July 1600, and is supposed there to have met his future painter, but it is also to be remembered that another Fleming, Francis Pourbus the younger, was at the time employed by him in taking the likeness of the prettiest women of the day; and Rubens, much against his will, was also, at first, it seems, intrusted with a similar task. The influence of the master's stay at Mantua was of extreme importance, and cannot be too constantly kept in view in the study of his later works.

Sent to Rome in 1601, to take copies from Raphael for his master, he was also commissioned to paint several pictures for the church of Santa Croce, by the archduke Albert of Austria, sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands, and once, when he was a cardinal, the titular of that see. A copy of Mercury and Psyche after Raphael is preserved in the museum at Pesth. The religious paintings-the Invention of the Cross, the Crowning with Thorns, and the Crucifixion-are to be found in the hospital at Grasse in Provence.

At the beginning of 1603 "The Fleming," as he was termed at Mantua, was sent to Spain with a variety of presents for Philip III. and his minister the duke of Lerma, and thus had opportunity to spend a whole year at Madrid and become acquainted with some of Titian's masterpieces. Two of his own works, known to belong to the same period, are in the Madrid Gallery, Heraclitus and Democritus. Of Rubens's abilities so far back as 1604 we get a more complete idea from an immense picture now in the Antwerp Gallery, the Baptism of Our Lord, originally painted for the Jesuits at Mantua. it may be seen to what degree Italian surroundings had

Here

influenced the painter of Vincenzo Gonzaga. Vigorous to the extreme in design, he reminds us of Michelangelo as much as any of the degenerate masters of the Roman school, while in decorative skill he seems to be descended from Titian and in colouring from Giulio Romano. Equally with this picture the Transfiguration, now in the museum at Nancy, and the portraits of Vincenzo and his consort, kneeling before the Trinity, in the library at Mantua, claim a large share of attention, apart from the interest awakened by the name of their author.

Two years later we meet a very large altarpiece of the Circumcision at St Ambrogio at Genoa, the Virgin in a glory of Angels, and two groups of Saints, painted on the wall, at both sides of the high altar in the church of Santa Maria in Valicella, in Rome. Undoubtedly these works give an impression of grandeur and effectiveness, but, in the immediate vicinity of the finest productions of the Italian school, they rank higher as documentary evidence than in intrinsic value, and remind us of a saying of Baglione, who was acquainted with Rubens in Italy, Apprese egli buon gusto, e diede in una maniera buona Italiana."

beginning regarded as a great favour to be admitted a pupil of Rubens.

Apart from the success of his works, another powerful motive had helped to detain the master in Antwerp,-his marriage with Isabella Brant (October 1609). Many pictures have made us familiar with the graceful young woman who was for seventeen years to share the master's destinies. We meet her at The Hague, St Petersburg, Florence, at Grosvenor House, but more especially at Munich, where Rubens and his wife are depicted at full length on the same canvass. "His wife is very handsome," observes Sir Joshua Reynolds, "and has an agreeable countenance;" but the picture, he adds, "is rather hard in manner." This, it must be noted, is the case with all those pictures known to have immediately followed Rubens's return, when he was still dependent on the assistance of painters trained by others than himself. Even in the Raising of the Cross, now in the Antwerp cathedral, and painted for the church of St Walburg in 1610, the dryness in outline is very striking. According to the taste still at that time prevailing, the picture is tripartite, but the wings only serve to develop the central composition, and add to the general effect. In Witdoeck's beautiful engraving the partitions even disappear. Thus, from the first, we see Rubens quite determined upon having his own way, and it is recorded that, when he painted the Descent from the Crosa St Christopher, the subject chosen by the Arquebusiers, was altered so as to bring the artistic expressions into better accordance with his views. Although the subject was frequently repeated by the great painter, this first Descent from the Cross has not ceased to be looked upon as his masterpiece. Begun in 1611, the celebrated work was placed in 1614, and certainly no more striking evidence could be given of the rapid growth of the author's abilities. Rubens received 2400 florins for this picture.

While employed at Rome in 1608, Rubens received most alarming news as to the state of his mother's health. The duke of Gonzaga was then absent from Italy, but the dutiful son, without awaiting his return, at once set out for the Netherlands, though with the full intention of shortly resuming his post at court, as we gather from a letter to Annibale Chieppio, the Mantuan minister. When he arrived in Antwerp, Maria Pypelincx was no more. However strong his wish might now be to return to Italy, his purpose was overruled by the express desire of his sovereigns, Albert and Isabella, to see him take up a permanent residence in the Belgian provinces. Scarcely a year before, the archduke had unsuccessfully attempted to free the painter from his engagement at Mantua, and he could not fail to take advantage of the opportunity now Although it is chance that has brought the Raising of presented for the fulfilment of his wishes. On August 3, the Cross and the Descent from the Cross into their 1609, Rubens was named painter in ordinary to their High-present close juxtaposition, it is not improbable that their nesses, with a salary of 500 livres, and "the rights, honours, uniformity in size may have been designed. In many privileges, exemptions," &c., belonging to persons of the respects, Italian influence remains conspicuous in the royal household, not to speak of the gift of a gold chain. Descent. Rubens had seen Ricciarelli's fresco at the Not least in importance for the painter was his complete Trinita de' Monti, and was also acquainted with the exemption from all the regulations of the guild of St grandiose picture of Baroccio in the cathedral of Perugia, Luke, entitling him to engage any scholars or fellow- and no one conversant with these works can mistake their workers, without being obliged to have them enrolled,—a influence. But in Rubens strength of personality could favour, it must be added, which has been the source of not be overpowered by reminiscence; and in type, as well considerable trouble to the historians of Flemish art. as in colouring, the Descent from the Cross may be termed thoroughly Flemish and Rubenesque. As Waagen justly observes: "the boldness of the composition, the energy in the characters, the striking attitudes, and the effects of the grouping, together with the glowing vigorous colouring, belong to his later style, whereas a few of the heads, particularly that of the Virgin, display the careful execution of his earlier period. The interior of the wings, on which are painted the Visitation and the Presentation in the Temple, exhibit, on the other hand, a greater resemblance to the conjugal picture already alluded to, owing to a certain repose in action, a more elevated expression of delicacy and feeling in the characters, and a less glowing though still admirable colouring."

Although so recently returned to his native land, Rubens seems to have been, with one accord, accepted by his countrymen as the head of their school, and the municipality was foremost in giving him the means of proving his acquirements. The first in date among the numerous repetitions of the Adoration of the Magi is a picture in the Madrid Gallery, measuring 12 feet by 17, and containing no fewer than eight-and twenty life size figures, many in gorgeous attire, warriors in steel armour, borsemen, slaves, camels, &c This picture, painted in Antwerp, at the town's expeuse in 1609, had scarcely remained three years ir the towr-hall when it went to Spain as a present to Don Rodrigo Calderon, count of Oliva. The painter has represented himself among the horsemen, bareheaded, and wearing his gold chain. Cumberland speaks of this picture as the standard work of its author. and certainly it was well calculated to bring Rubens t, the front rank in his profession. From a letter written in May 1611 we know that more than a red young men were desirous to become his pupils, and that many had, for several years," been waiting with other masters, until he could admit them to his studio. It was thus from the

[ocr errors]

Legend, in some way, connects Van Dyck with the Descent from the Cross, and ascribes to the great portrait painter an arm and shoulder of Mary Magdalene, which had been damaged by a pupil's carelessness. Plain truth here, once more, seems to contradict romance. Van Dyck was a pupil of Van Balen's in 1609, and most probably remained with him several years before coming to Rubens. If Sir Dudley Carleton could speak of Antwerp in 1616 as "Magna civitas, magna solitudo," there was no place

nevertheless which could give a wider scope to artistic cuterprise. Spain and the United Provinces were for a timo at-peace; almost all the churches had been stripped of their adornments; monastic orders were powerful and richly endowed, guilds and corporations eager to, show the fervour of their Catholic faith, now that the "monster of heresy" seemed for ever quelled. Here were opportunities without number for painters as well as sculptors and architects. Gothic churches began to be decorated according to the new fashion adopted in Italy. Altars magnified to inouuinents, sometimes reaching the full height of the vaulted roof, displayed, between their twisted colunins, pictures of a size hitherto unknown. No master seemed better fitted to be associated with this kind of painting than Rubens, whose works we have already met with in churches newly erected at Rome, Genoa, and Mantua, by the Jesuits, in the gorgeous style which bears their name, and which Rubens commends in the preface to his Paluzzi di Genova (Antwerp, 1622). The temple erected by the reverend fathers in Antwerp was almost entirely the painter's work, and if he did not, as we often find asserted, design the front, he certainly was the inspirer of the whole building, which, after all, was but a reminiscence of the churches in Genoa. And the temple of the Jesuits in Antwerp remained for a century the only example of its kind in Belgium. Hitherto no Fleming had undertaken to paint ceilings with foreshortened figures, and blend the religious with the decorative art after the style of those buildings which are met with in Italy, and owe their decorations to masters like Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto. No less than forty ceilings were composed by Rubens, and painted under his direction in the space of two years. All were destroyed by fire in 1718. Sketches. in watercolour were taken some time before the disaster by De Wit, and from these were made the etchings by Punt which alone enable us to form a judgment of the grandiose undertaking. In the Madrid Gallery we find a general view of the church in all its splendour. The present church of St Charles in Antwerp is, externally, with some alteration, the building here alluded to.

Rubens delighted in undertakings of the vastest kind. "The large size of a picture," he writes to W. Trumbull in 1621, "gives us painters more courage to represent our ideas with the utmost freedom and semblance of reality. I confess myself to be, by a natural instinct, better fitted to execute works of the largest size." The correctness of this appreciation he was very soon called upon to demonstrate most strikingly by a series of twentyfour pictures, illustrating the life of Mary de' Medici, queen-mother of France. The gallery at the Luxembourg Palace, which these paintings once adorned, has long since disappeared, and the complete work is now exhibited in the Louvre. Drawings, it seems, had been asked from Quentin Varin, the French master who incited Poussin to become a painter, but Rubens was ultimately preferred. This preference may in some degree be ascribed to his former connexion with the court at Mantua, Mary de' Medici and the duchess of Gonzaga being sisters. The story of Mary de' Medici inay be regarded as a poem in painting, and no person conversant with the literature of the time can fail to recognize that st.ange mixture of the sacred and the 'mythological in which the most admired authors of the 17th century, beginning with Malherbe, delight. Absolutely speaking, Mrs Jameson may be right in criticizing Rubens's". coarse allegories, historical improprieties, &c."; but a man belongs to his time, and uses its language in order to make himself understood. From the cradle to the day of her reconciliation with, Louis XIII., we follow Mary de' Medici after the manner in which it was customary in those days to consider personages of

|

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

superior rank. The Fates for her have spun the silken and golden thread; Juno watches over her birth and intrusts her to the town of Florence; Minerva, the Graces, and Apollo take charge of her education; Love exhibits her image to the king, and Neptune conveys her across the seas; Justice, Health, and Plenty endow her son; Prudence and Generosity are at her sides during the regency; and, when she resigns the helm of the state to the prince, Justice, Strength, Religion, and Fidelity hold the oars. The sketches of all these paintings-now in the Munich Gallery-were painted in Antwerp, a numerous staff of distinguished collaborators being intrusted with the final execution. But the master himself spent much time in Paris, retouching the whole work, which was completed within less than four years. On May 13, 1625, Rubens writes from Paris to his friend Peiresc that both the queen and her son are highly satisfied with his paintings,-and that Louis XIII. came on purpose to the Luxembourg, "where he never has set foot since the palace was begun sixteen or eighteen years ago.' We also gatior from this letter that the picture representing the Felicity of the Regency was painted to replace another, the Departure of the Queen, which had caused some offence. "If I had been let alone," he says, "the other subjects would have been better accepted by the court, and without scandal or murmur." "And I fear," he adds, "fur greater difficulties will be found with the subjects of the next gallery." Richelieu gave himself some trouble to get this part of the work, intended to represent the life of Henry IV., bestowed upon Cavalier d'Arpina, but did not succeed in his endeaThe queen's exile, however, prevented the undertaking from going beyond a few sketches, and two or three panels, one of which, the Triumph of Henry IV., now in the Palazzo Pitti, is one of the noblest works of Rubens or of any master. Most undoubtedly the painter here calls to his aid his vivid recollections of the Triumph of Cæsar by Mantegna, now at Hampton Court, but in his day adorning the palace at Mantua; of this he made a copy, inscribed No. 315 in the catalogue of his effects sold in 1640, and now in the National Gallery.

vours.

On the 11th of May 1625 Rubens was present at the nuptials of Henrietta Maria at Notre Dame in Paris, when the scaffolding on which he stood gave way, and he tells us he was just able to catch an adjoining tribune.

No painter in Europe could now pretend to equal Rubens either in- talent or in renown. Month after month productions of amazing size left the Antwerp studio; and to those unacquainted with the master's pictures magnificent engravings by Vorsterman, Pontius, and others had conveyed singularly striking interpretations. "Whatever work of his I may require," writes Moretus, the celebrated Antwerp printer, "I have to ask him six months before, so as that he may think of it at leisure, and do the work on Sundays or holidays, no week days of his could I pretend to get under a hundred florins."

Of the numerous creations of his pencil, none, perhaps, will more thoroughly disclose to us his comprehension of religious decorative art than the Assumption of the Virgin at the high altar of the Antwerp cathedral, finished in 1625. it is, of twenty repetitions of this subject, the only example still preserved at the place it was intended by the painter to occupy. In spirit we are here reminded of Titian's Assunta in the cathedral at Verona, but Rubens's proves perhaps a higher conception of the subject. The work is seen a considerable way off, and every outline is bathed in light, so that the Virgin is elevated to dazzling glory with a power of ascension, scarcely, if ever. attained by any master.

[ocr errors]

Able to rely so greatly on nis power as a colourist, Rubens is not a mere decorator. He penetrates into the

spirit of his subjects more deeply than, at first sight, seems consistent with his prodigious facility in execution. The Massacre of the Innocents, in the Munich Gallery, is a composition that can leave no person unmoved,-mothers defending their children with nails and teeth. If Mrs Jameson terms this picture atrocious, it ought to be recollected how atrocious is the subject. When St Francis attempts to shelter the universe from the Saviour's wrath (Brussels Gallery), Rubens, drawing his inspiration from a passage of St Germain, "Ostendit mater filio pectus et ubera," recalls to our memory that most dramatic passage of the Iliad when Hecuba, from the walls of Troy, entreats her son Hector to spare his life. The subject is inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity, says Waagen, evidently forgetting that to Catholic eyes nothing could be more impressive than the Virgin's intervention at this supreme moment, when Christ, like another Jupiter, brandishes his thunderbolt against mankind. Rubens was a man of his time; his studies of Italian art in no way led him back to the Quattrocentisti nor the Raffaeleschi; their power was at an end. The influence of Michelangelo, Titian, Tintoretto, more especially Baroccio, Polydoro, and even Parmigiano, is no less visible with him than with those masters who, like Spranger, Chr. Schwartz, and Goltzius, stood high in public estimation immediately before his advent.

In the midst of the rarest activity as a painter, Rubens was now called upon to give proofs of a very different kind of ability. The truce concluded between Spain and the Netherlands in 1609 ended in 1621; archduke Albert died the same year. His widow sincerely wished to prolong the arrangement, still hoping to see the United Provinces return to the Spanish dominion, and in her eyes Rubens was the fittest person to bring about this conclusion. The painter's comings and goings, however, did not remain unheeded, for the French ambassador writes from Brussels in 1624,-"Rubens is here to take the likeness of the prince of Poland, by order of the infanta. I am persuaded he will succeed better in this than in his negotiations for the truce." But, if Rubens was to fail in his efforts to bring about an arrangement with the Netherlands, other events enabled him to render great service to the state.

Rubens and Buckingham met in Paris in 1625; a correspondence of some importance had been going on between the painter and the Brussels court, and before long it was proposed that he should endeavour to bring about a final arrangement between the crowns of England and Spain. The infanta willingly consented, and King Philip, who much objected to the interference of an artist, gave way on hearing, through his aunt, that the negotiator on the English side, B. Gerbier-a Fleming by birth-was likewise a painter. Rubens and Gerbier very soon met in Holland. "Rubens is come hither to Holland, where he now is, and Gerbier in his company, walking from town to town, upon their pretence of pictures," writes Sir Dudley Carleton to Lord Conway in July 1627, "which may serve him for a few days if he dispatch and be gone; but yf he entertayne tyme here long, he will infallibly be layd hold of, or sent with disgrace out of the country This I have made known to Rubens least he should meet with a skorne what may in some sort reflect upon others." Matters, however, went on very well, and Rubens volunteered to go to Spain and lay before the council the result of his negotiations (1628). Nine months were thus spent at Madrid; they rank among the most important in Rubens's career. He had brought with him eight pictures of various sizes and subjects as presents from the infanta, and he was also commissioned to take several portraits of the king and royal family.

An

equestrian picture of Philip IV., destroyed by fire in last century, became the subject of a poem by Lope de Vega, and the description enables us to identify the composition with that of a painting now in the Palazzo Pitti, ascribed to Velazquez.

Through a letter to Peiresc we hear of the familiar intercourse kept up between the painter and the king. Philip delighted to see Rubens at work in the studio prepared for him in the palace, where he not only left many original pictures, but copied for his own pleasure and profit the best of Titian's. No less than forty works were thus produced, and, says the author of the Annals of the Artists of Spain, "the unwearied activity of his well-stored mind is exemplified by the fact that amid his many occupations he was seeking in the libraries materials for an edition of Marcus Aurelius, on which his friend Gaspard Gevaerts was then engaged." An artistic event of some importance connected with the sojourn in Spain is the meeting of Rubens and Velazquez, to the delight. and we venture to add, advantage of both.

Great as was the king's admiration of Rubens as a painter, it seems to have been scarcely above the value attached to his political services. Far from looking upon Rubens as a man of inferior calling, unworthy to meddle with matters of state, he now commissioned the painter to go to London as bearer of his views to Charles I. Giving up his long cherished hope of revisiting Italy on his return from Spain, Rubens, honoured with the title of secretary of the king's privy council in the Netherlands, started at once on his new mission. Although he stopped but four days in Antwerp, he arrived in London just as peace had been concluded with France. In this conjuncture of affairs, it can hardly be doubted that the eminent position of Rubens as a painter greatly contributed to his ultimate success as an envoy. Received by Charles with genuine pleasure, he very soon was able to ingratiate himself so far as to induce the king to pledge his royal word to take part in no undertakings against Spain so long as the negotiations remained unconcluded, and all the subsequent endeavours of France, Venice, and the States found him immovable in this resolution. Although the privy council in Madrid, as well they might, passed several votes of thanks to Rubens, the tardiness of the Spanish court in sending a regular ambassador involved the unfortunate painter in distressing anxieties, and the tone of his dispatches is very bitter. But he speaks with the greatest admiration of England and the English, regretting that he should only have come to know the country so late. His popularity must have been very great, for on September 23, 1629, the university of Cambridge conferred upon him the honorary degree of master of arts, and on February 21, 1630, he was knighted, the king presenting him with the sword used at the ceremony, which is still preserved by the descendants of the artist.

When the council at Madrid had to deliberate as to recognition of the title conferred upon Rubens in England, they remembered that Titian had been made a knight by the emperor Charles V., and the matter was settled without difficulty; but, the painter's name having been mentioned as a possible envoy to the British court, Olivares objected that it was quite out of the question to make an ambassador of one who lived by the work of his hands.

Although, it seems, less actively employed as an artist in England than in Spain, Rubens, besides his sketches for the decoration of the Banqueting House at Whitehall, painted the admirable picture of the Blessings of Peace, now in the National Gallery. There is no reason to doubt, with Smith, that "His Majesty sat to him for his portrait, yet it is not a little remarkable that no notice occurs in any of the royal catalogues, or the writers of the

period, of the existence of such a portrait." While in England, Rubens very narrowly escaped drowning while going to Greenwich in a boat. The fact is reported by Lord Dorchester in a letter to Sir Isaac Wake (Sainsbury, cxvi.). At the beginning of March the painter's mission came to a close.

Rubens was now fifty-three years of age; he had been four years a widower, and before the end of the year (Deccinber 1630) he entered into a second marriage with the beautiful girl of sixteen, named Helena Fourment, with whom his pictures have made the world so well acquainted. More than twenty portraits of her are described by Smitli, and she also figures in perhaps twice as many of the master's creations. Whether Rubens was more powerfully led in the choice of his second wife by her personal beauty or by the strength of a certain resemblance to his feminine ideal is questionable. Anyhow, she was an admirable model, and none of her husband's works may be more justly termed masterpieces than those in which she is represented (Munich, St Petersburg, Blenheim. Liechtenstein, the Louvre, &c.).

Although the long months of absence could not be termed blanks in Rubens's artistic career, his return was followed by an almost incredible activity. Inspired more than ever by the glorious works of Titian, he now produced some of his best creations. Brightness in colouring, breadth of touch and pictorial conception, are specially striking in those works we know to have been painted in the latter part of his lifetime. Could anything give a higher degree of Rubens's genius than, for example, the Feast of Venus, the portrait of Helena Fourment ready to enter the bath, or the St Ildefonso. This last picture now, as well as the two others just alluded to, in the Vienna Gallery-was painted for the church of the convent of St Jacques, in Brussels. On the wings are represented the archdukes in royal attire, under the protection of their patron saints. The presence of these figures has led to some mistake regarding the date of the production, but it has been proved beyond doubt, through a document published by Mr Castan (1884), that the St Ildefonso belongs to the series of works executed after the journeys to Spain and England. Archduke Albert had been dead ten years. The picture was engraved by Witdoeck in 1638.

Isabella died in 1633, and we know that to the end Rubens remained in high favour with her, alike as an artist and as a political agent. The painter was even one of the gentlemen she deputed to meet Mary de' Medici at the frontier in 1631, after her escape from France.

Spain and the Netherlands went to war again, the king never ceasing to look upon the Dutch as rebels. The subject need not be dwelt upon; suffice it to say that much useless trouble and suspicion came upon the great artist. As to the real nature of his communings with Frederick Henry of Orange, whom he is known to have interviewed, nothing as yet has been discovered.

Ferdinand of Austria, the cardinal-infant of Spain, was called to the government of the Netherlands on the death of his aunt. He was the king's younger brother, and arrived at Antwerp in May 1635. The streets had been decorated with triumphal arches and "spectacula," arranged by Rubens, and certainly never equalled by any other works of the kind.1 Several of the paintings detached from the arches were offered as presents to the new governor-general, a scarcely known fact, which accounts for the presence of many of these works in public galleries 1 Many sketches of the arches are still preserved in the museumis in Antwerp, St Petersburg, Cambridge, Windsor, &c. All the compositions were etched under the direction of Rubens by his pupil J. Van Thulden and published under the title of Pompa introitus honori serenissimi Principis Ferdinandi Austriaci S. R. E. card. a S. P. Q. Antverp. decreta et ordinata

(Vienna, Dresden, Brussels, &c.). Rubens was at the time laid up with gout, but Prince Ferdinand was desirous of expressing his satisfaction, and called upon the painter, remaining a long time at his house. Rubens and Ferdinand had met at Madrid, and only a short time elapsed before the painter was confirmed in his official standing,—a matter of small importance, if we consider that the last years of his life were almost exclusively employed in working much more for the king than for his brother. About a hundred and twenty paintings of considerable size left Antwerp for Madrid in 1637, 1638, and 1639; they were intended to decorate the pavilion erected at the Pardo, and known under the name of Torre de la Parada. Another series had been begun, when Ferdinand wrote to Madrid that the painter was no more, and Jordaens would finish the work. Rubens breathed his last on the 30th of May 1640.

More fortunate than many artists, Rubens left the world in the midst of his glory. Not the remotest trace of approaching old in his latest works, such as the Martyrdom of St Peter at Cologne, age, not the slighest failing of mind or skill, can be detected even the Martyrdom of St Thomas at Prague, or the Judgment of Paris at Madrid, where his young wife appears for the last time. is the handsomest person in Antwerp," writes Ferdinand to his brother, in announcing the completion of what he terms "the best painting Rubens has done."

"She

If Rubens was something of a diplomatist, it cannot be denied that alike in body as in mind he is portrayed in his own works with are, as if they could not have been otherwise, and the fact is that, the utmost straightforwardness. His productions are what they in reply to any observations he may happen to receive, we constantly find him asserting the necessities of his subjects, thus confirming a remark made by Sir Joshua Reynolds that his subjects always seem to suit his style.

Rubens is so well known that it hardly seems necessary to dwell upon his outward appearance. From his own letters and those in which he is referred to we become acquainted with a man of vast erudition, great good sense, dignity, and kindness, none more worthy of being called a gentleman; and Sir Dudley Carleton, we know, termed him not only the prince of painters but of gentle

men.

Those with whom he dealt in questions of learning proclaim his artistic excellence to be second only to his other qualifications, and even such critics as Winckelmann, who are least likely to sympathize with his style, do homage to his superior genius. Rubens," he writes to Count Cobenzl, "is the glory of art, of his school, of his country, and of all coming centuries; the fertility of his imagination cannot be overrated; he is correct in his design, magnificent in his drapery; and he must be looked upon as the great model for chiaroscuro, although in this branch he may be termed fanciful, but he has not sacrificed to the goddesses of beauty (Hora) and the Graces."

Rubens, indeed, although his type of feminine beauty is generally most pleasing, has little of the Italian grace and refinement, but then he was a Fleming throughout, notwithstanding his frequent recollections of those Italian masters whom he most admired, and who themselves have little, if anything, in common with Raphael. But it must be borne in mind how completely his predecessors were frozen into stiffness through Italianization, and how necessary it was to bring back the Flemish school to life and nature. Critics have spoken of Rubens's historical improprieties. Of course nobody could suppose that his classical learning did not go far enough to know that the heroines of the Old Testament or of Roman history were not dressed out as ladies of his time; but in this respect he only follows the example of Titian, Paul Veronese, and many others. In no other school do we find these animated hunts of lions, tigers, and even the hippopotamus and the crocodile, which may be reckoned among the finest specimens of art, and here again are life and nature displayed with the utmost power. "His horses are perfect in their kind," says Reynolds; his dogs are of the strong Flemish breed, and his landscapes the most charming pictures of Brabantine scenery, in the midst of which lay his seat of Steen. As a portrait painter, although less refined than Van Dyck, he shows that eminent master the way, and his pure fancy subjects, as the Garden of Love (Madrid and Dresden) and the Village Feast (Louvre), have never been equalled. As Mrs Jameson so justly remarks," Rubens is the most popular because the most intelligible of painters.'

[ocr errors]

For nearly one hundrea years the Flemish school may be said to have been but a reflexion of the Rubenesque principles. Although Jordaens and Erasmus Quellin lived till 1678, the school might be termed a body without soul.

Some etchings have been ascribed to Rubens, but except a head

« السابقةمتابعة »