Peter Paul Rubens - 1577-1640

( Originally Published 1902 )

FLEMISH SCHOOL

ROGER DE PILES 'LA VIE DE RUBENS' [1681]

THE father of Peter Paul Rubens was John Rubens, of the city of Antwerp. Noble by his birth, and possessed both of a high character and of profound learning, John Rubens had spent six years in the different states of Italy to form his taste and to reinforce his judgment, and was named a doctor, in both civil and canon law, by the University of Padua. He there-after returned into his native Flanders, where he served worthily as councillor and alderman in Antwerp ; and for six years continued with honor in this public employment. Upon the outbreak of the civil war, however, he was obliged to quit his fatherland, from which he had highly deserved because of his wise administration, and took up his residence at Cologne, which he chose because of his preference for a quiet and retired life.

It was therefore in Cologne, in 1577, that Peter Paul Rubens was born, and there that he laid the foundations of his education ; and it is related that he showed such application and parts, that, in a short space of time, he surpassed all his companions. He was therefore far advanced, and able to accomplish more than is usual at his age, when his father's death, in 1587, obliged his mother to return to Antwerp, where Rubens finished his course of study.

Immediately after leaving the Jesuit college where he had been trained up, his mother put him under the protection of the Dowager-Countess of Lalaing, and he became one of her pages ; but apparently the boy found him-self unsuited to this mode of life, for he remained in the service of the countess but a short time, seemingly unable to resist the impulse of his proper genius, which drew him towards the practice of art. He therefore obtained permission from his mother (who, be it said, had lost the greater part of the family fortune through the hazards of war) that he should be apprenticed to one Adam van Noort, a celebrated painter of Antwerp. With this artist he spent some years in learning the rudiments of his art ; and such was his precocity that it was easy to be perceived that the intention of Nature in bringing him into this world was that he should become a great painter.

After leaving the studio of Van Noort, he spent four years as a pupil of Otho Voenius, painter to the Archduke Albert, and at that time considered the Apelles of the Flemish nation. Under this preceptor Rubens made rapid advancement ; and his reputation soon became so great and so wide-spread that it was doubtful which was the master and which the pupil. There-upon, feeling that he had no more to learn from Voenius, Rubens resolved to journey into Italy, that he might there study the productions of the ancients and of modern artists. He accordingly left Flanders on the ninth of May, 1600, at the age of twenty-three.

Arrived in Venice, he by chance took lodgings in the same house with a gentleman of the suite of the Duke of Mantua; and this gentleman, having seen some of Rubens' works, brought the Duke of Mantua to see them. The duke, who was a passionate lover of all the fine arts, and in especial of the art of painting, was much taken with Rubens, promised him his friendship, and urged him, with all the arguments of which he was master, to enter his service. Rubens accepted this offer with the utmost willingness, being especially delighted with the opportunity for study which such a post afforded; and during the whole time that he remained in this service he received so many kindnesses from the duke that he gloried in the title of being his servitor.

After having remained with this prince for a considerable time, Rubens departed for Rome, where he painted three pictures in the church of Santa Croce. A short time after this he was despatched by the Duke of Mantua with the present of a splendid coach and seven horses of unusual beauty to the King of Spain. Hardly had he returned from this mission when he under-took another journey to Venice, with the intention of studying minutely and at leisure the works of art there ; and in truth, as is evidenced by his work thereafter, he did draw from the masterpieces of Titian, Paul Veronese, and Tintoretto all the profit which any man whosoever could have drawn from them.

When Rubens had remained eight years in Italy the news of a dangerous sickness to which his mother had succumbed obliged him , in 1608, to return into Flanders ; but although he made the journey in the utmost haste, he found her already dead when he arrived.

The fame of his knowledge and qualities had preceded his arrival in his native country. The Archduke Albert and his wife Isabella, governors of the Spanish Netherlands, desired that he should paint their portraits; and fearing that he would again repair into Italy, they made him their Painter in Ordinary, and engaged him by a pension and by all other honorable persuasions to remain near their persons, and did all that they could to persuade him to reside at the court in Brussels. Although he resisted their requests with great difficulty, he nevertheless finally obtained permission from them to establish his residence and usual place of abode at Antwerp instead, for he was afraid that the varied affairs and attractions of the court would distract him, and thus prevent him from reaching the full perfection in his art of which he felt himself capable.

Rubens, seeing himself thus bound to his native land by such powerful ties, considered that he was now in an estate to enter into matrimony, and espoused Isabella, the daughter of John Brant, a councillor of Antwerp. He also bought himself a large house in the city of Antwerp, which he remodelled after the Roman style of architecture, and embellished it inside and out, that it might be a suitable abode for an eminent painter and for an amateur of works of art. The mansion was adjoined by a spacious garden in which he planted trees of all the sorts and varieties which he could anywhere obtain. Between the courtyard of the house and the garden he built a pavilion of a round shape, after the fashion of the Temple of the Pantheon, at Rome. Light was admitted to this pavilion only from above, through a single opening in the centre of the dome, and the interior he adorned with many antique statues and precious pictures which he had collected in Italy, and with other things rare and curious.

After the death of the Archduke Albert, who had held Rubens in especial affection, and who had stood godfather to the painter's eldest son, Rubens was no less favored by the esteem and good will of the Archduchess, his widow, and by all the greatest nobles of the court of the Netherlands, especially by the Marquis of Spinola, who took extreme pleasure in engaging him in conversation, and who was accustomed to say that he found so many talents combined in him that, for his own part, he believed the gift of painting to be one of the least considerable of them.

It was about this time that Queen Marie de Médicis was building her Palace of the Luxembourg, and that she might adorn it with every splendor, she wished it to contain two galleries filled with works by Rubens alone ; and to this end she commissioned him to paint for one of these galleries a series of pictures setting forth the incidents of her own life, and for the other, a series depicting the career of her husband, Henry IV. She was not able to see the full accomplishment of this project, however, for she was exiled at the time when Rubens was still working upon the pictures which should immortalize the achievements of the king her husband ; but he had begun the series by illustrating the history of the queen's life, and has left that work in its perfection as an eternal monument to his genius.

During the sojourn of Rubens in Paris, where he had gone to see the pictures just named put in their places, and to give them the finishing touches, — which happened in 1625,— he by chance encountered the Duke of Buckingham, who was then in high favor with the King of England, as well as with the princes of the court of France. The duke had heard much of the merits of Rubens, and desired the painter to take his portrait. This Rubens did, and so acquitted himself that he surpassed the duke's expectations in every point. After the acquaintance thus begun between them had endured for some time, and they had become bound together in close intimacy, the duke confided to the painter how deeply chagrined he was at the misunderstandings and wars which so constantly embroiled the kingdoms of Spain and England, and that he had conceived a project for reconciling them.

On his return to Brussels Rubens communicated this intelligence to the archduchess, who, overjoyed at it, ordered him to cherish his friendship with the duke, and by no means to allow the bonds of their intimacy to relax. This Rubens did, and so devoted himself to the business in hand that the Duke of Buckingham, thinking that he was in some measure weaned by his diplomatic negotiations from his great love for painting, sent to offer him a hundred thousand florins for his collection of antique treasures and for a number of his pictures. Rubens, knowing the duke's passion for works of art, and greatly desiring to comply with his friend's request, consented ; but that he himself might not be totally deprived of the precious objects for which he had so much affection, and which had cost him so much effort to obtain, he had all the marble statues that he ceded to the duke first cast in plaster, and set up these casts in the same places that their originals had occupied. To take the places of those pictures which he had sold, he painted others with his own hand.

Meantime, in 1628, the courts of Spain and England had begun to consider the establishment of a mutual peace. The Marquis of Spinola, believing that there was none better qualified than Rubens to undertake such negotiations, spoke of the matter to the archduchess, who despatched Rubens to the King of Spain ; and that monarch was so pleased with the painter's person and abilities, and judged him so well fitted to undertake the negotiations between the two kingdoms, that, as token of his satisfaction, he made Rubens a knight, and gave him the post of secretary to his privy council in the Netherlands.'

The following year Rubens returned to Brussels, and from Brussels journeyed into England with commissions from the King of Spain to King Charles I. of England, intended to further advance the settlement of their difficulties. The English king, who was extremely fond of painting, received him at London with especial honor. After having concluded the terms of peace, to the great relief of the subjects of both countries and to the satisfaction of their respective kings, Rubens took leave of the English monarch, who, as a mark of his consideration, knighted him, as the Spanish king had done, bestowed a sword which he took from his own person upon him, and also made him a present of a rich diamond which he took from his own finger, as well as of a string of diamonds of the value of ten thousand crowns. When Rubens, loaded with all these marks of favor, returned into Spain to give a report of his negotiations, he was received by the Spanish court with every mark of esteem, confidence, and friendship. The king made him a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, bestowed the Order of the Golden Key upon him, and commanded him to take the portraits of the royal family.

Having thus gloriously brought about a truce, Rubens returned to Antwerp. There he married, in 1630, at the age of fifty-three, Helena Fourment, a girl of uncommon beauty, and who was then only sixteen years old. His first wife had been four years dead.

I will not here delay to enumerate his works in detail, for the number of them is almost infinite ; but I will merely mention that in addition to the many pictures which he painted of every style, and for all the courts of Europe, for the royal families of Spain, of England, of France, and for many other princes, he also filled almost all the churches of Flanders with his painting.

If to live happily, to be employed in such wise as to exercise the especial talents which Nature has bestowed, and thus to be assured of success in these undertakings, constitutes happiness, one may say that Rubens' life thereafter was one of the happiest which has ever been led in this world. If henceforth he left his painting at Antwerp, upon which he worked with the most marvellous facility and with great delight to himself, he left it only that he might go to the court of Brussels, where he was often called by the archduchess to advise in affairs of state ; - and he used his gifts, as far as in him lay, to bring about the happiness of the people and the re-establishment in all countries of the love of art. He never interrupted his painting except for business of this nature, nor left such business except for his painting, which held the first place in his affection.

The qualities with which nature had endowed him, and the virtues which he had acquired, gave him the esteem and affection of all who knew him. He was of large stature, commanding presence, and his features were well formed and regular. His cheeks were ruddy, his hair auburn colored, his eyes bright but not piercing, his countenance laughing, agreeable, and open. His manners were engaging, his humor easy, his conversation apt, his wit sparkling and keen, his fashion of speaking dignified, and the sound of his voice most agreeable ; all of which natural charms made him most eloquent and persuasive.

Although he seems to have had much to distract him, his life was nevertheless strictly regulated. He rose every morning at four o'clock, and made it his rule to commence each day by hearing mass, whenever he was not prevented from so doing by the gout, a malady which greatly incommoded him. After mass he set himself to work, having always near by a paid reader who read to him aloud from some worthy book, usually either Plutarch, Livy, or Seneca. While he was painting he could converse without distraction and without quitting his work ; and was accustomed to entertain with his conversation those who came to see him while thus occupied. As he extremely de-lighted in his work, he so regulated his life that he might labor most easily and without damage to his health ; and for this reason he ate and drank but sparingly, that he might not by satiety cloud or dull his faculties. He continued to paint daily up to five o'clock in the afternoon, when he went out on horseback on some fine Spanish horse to take the air, and was accustomed to ride through the city and about the ramparts. He rarely visited his friends ; but he so cordially received all who came to see him that hardly a stranger passed through Antwerp, no matter what his quality might be, who did not go to Rubens' house, either attracted by his fame or to see his collection of works of art, which was one of the finest in Europe.

In his last years he planned to secure for himself a more tranquil life than that which he had heretofore lived, and with this object he bought the domain of Steen, situated between Brussels and Mechlin, and to this retired spot he went sometimes for solitude, or whenever he was pleased to paint landscapes after nature.

Having lived a life so useful to his sovereigns and to his country, and so glorious to himself, he died in 1640, in his sixty-fourth year, and was buried in the church of St. Jacques at Antwerp. — ABRIDGED FROM THE