The connection between the art world, and the European Illuminati is old...................

Apprenticeship[edit]

Portrait of a Young Scholar, from 1597

In Antwerp, Rubens received a humanist education, studying Latin and classical literature. By fourteen he began his artistic apprenticeship withTobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the city’s leading painters of the time, the late Mannerist artists Adam van NoortandOtto van Veen.[3] Much of his earliest training involved copying earlier artists’ works, such as woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger andMarcantonio Raimondi‘s engravings afterRaphael. Rubens completed his education in 1598, at which time he entered the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master.[4]

Italy (1600–1608)[edit]

The Fall of Phaeton, 1604 in National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. – 98.4 × 131.2 cm (38.7 × 51.7 in)

In 1600, Rubens travelled to Italy. He stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantuaat the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The coloring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an immediate effect on Rubens’s painting, and his later, mature style was profoundly influenced by Titian.[5] With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way ofFlorence in 1601. There, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters. The Hellenistic sculpture Laocoön and his Sons was especially influential on him, as was the art of Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci.[6] He was also influenced by the recent, highly naturalistic paintings byCaravaggio.

He later made a copy of that artist’s Entombment of Christ, recommended that his patron, the Duke of Mantua, purchase The Death of the Virgin(Louvre),[7] and was instrumental in the acquisition of The Madonna of the Rosary (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) for the Dominican church in Antwerp. During this first stay in Rome, Rubens completed his first altarpiece commission,St. Helena with the True Cross for the Roman church ofSanta Croce in Gerusalemme.

Rubens travelled to Spain on a diplomatic mission in 1603, delivering gifts from the Gonzagas to the court of Philip III. While there, he studied the extensive collections of Raphael and Titian that had been collected by Philip II.[8] He also painted an equestrian portrait of the Duke of Lermaduring his stay (Prado, Madrid) that demonstrates the influence of works like Titian’s Charles V at Mühlberg (1548; Prado, Madrid). This journey marked the first of many during his career that combined art and diplomacy.

Madonna on Floral Wreath, together with Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1619

He returned to Italy in 1604, where he remained for the next four years, first in Mantua and then in Genoa and Rome. In Genoa, Rubens painted numerous portraits, such as the Marchesa Brigida Spinola-Doria (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), and the portrait of Maria di Antonio Serra Pallavicini, in a style that influenced later paintings by Anthony van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough.[9]

He also began a book illustrating the palaces in the city, which was published in 1622 as Palazzi di Genova. From 1606 to 1608, he was mostly in Rome. During this period Rubens received, with the assistance of Cardinal Jacopo Serra (the brother of Maria Pallavicini), his most important commission to date for the High Altar of the city’s most fashionable new church, Santa Maria in Vallicella also known as the Chiesa Nuova.

The subject was to be St. Gregory the Great and important local saints adoring an icon of the Virgin and Child. The first version, a single canvas (now at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Grenoble), was immediately replaced by a second version on three slate panels that permits the actual miraculous holy image of the “Santa Maria in Vallicella” to be revealed on important feast days by a removable copper cover, also painted by the artist.[10]

Rubens’ experiences in Italy continued to influence his work. He continued to write many of his letters and correspondences in Italian, signed his name as “Pietro Paolo Rubens”, and spoke longingly of returning to the peninsula—a hope that never materialized.[11]

Antwerp (1609–1621)[edit]

Descent from the Cross, 1618. Hermitage Museum

Upon hearing of his mother’s illness in 1608, Rubens planned his departure from Italy for Antwerp. However, she died before he arrived home. His return coincided with a period of renewed prosperity in the city with the signing of the Treaty of Antwerp in April 1609, which initiated the Twelve Years’ Truce. In September 1609 Rubens was appointed as court painter by Albert VII, Archduke of Austria and Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain, sovereigns of the Low Countries.

He received special permission to base his studio in Antwerp instead of at their court in Brussels, and to also work for other clients. He remained close to the Archduchess Isabella until her death in 1633, and was called upon not only as a painter but also as an ambassador and diplomat. Rubens further cemented his ties to the city when, on 3 October 1609, he married Isabella Brant, the daughter of a leading Antwerp citizen and humanist, Jan Brant.

In 1610, Rubens moved into a new house and studio that he designed. Now the Rubenshuis Museum, the Italian-influenced villa in the centre of Antwerp accommodated his workshop, where he and his apprentices made most of the paintings, and his personal art collection and library, both among the most extensive in Antwerp. During this time he built up a studio with numerous students and assistants. His most famous pupil was the young Anthony van Dyck, who soon became the leading Flemish portraitist and collaborated frequently with Rubens. He also often collaborated with the many specialists active in the city, including the animal painter Frans Snyders who contributed the eagle to Prometheus Bound, and his good friend the flower-painter Jan Brueghel the Elder.

Family of Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1613-1615. Courtauld Institute of Art

Another house was built by Rubens to the north of Antwerp in the polder village of Doel, “De Hooghuis” (1613/1643), perhaps as an investment. The “High House” was built next to the village church.

Altarpieces such as The Raising of the Cross (1610) and The Descent from the Cross (1611–1614) for the Cathedral of Our Lady were particularly important in establishing Rubens as Flanders’ leading painter shortly after his return. The Raising of the Cross, for example, demonstrates the artist’s synthesis of Tintoretto’sCrucifixion for the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, Michelangelo‘s dynamic figures, and Rubens’ own personal style. This painting has been held as a prime example of Baroque religious art.[12]

Rubens used the production of prints and book title-pages, especially for his friend Balthasar Moretus, the owner of the large Plantin-Moretus publishing house, to extend his fame throughout Europe during this part of his career. With the exception of a couple of brilliant etchings, he only produced drawings for these himself, leaving the printmaking to specialists, such as Lucas Vorsterman, Paulus Pontius and Willem Panneels.[13] He recruited a number of engravers trained by Christoffel Jegher, who he carefully schooled in the more vigorous style he wanted.

He also designed the last significant woodcuts before the 19th century revival in the technique. Rubens established copyright for his prints, most significantly in Holland, where his work was widely copied through prints. In addition he established copyrights for his work in England, France andSpain.[14]

Portrait of Anna of Austria, Queen of France, c.1622-1625