Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens
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Peter Paul Rubens

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Peter Paul Rubens

Sir Peter Paul Rubens (/ˈrbənz/ ROO-bənz; Dutch: [ˈpeːtər pʌul ˈrybəns]; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. His unique and immensely popular Baroque style emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality, which followed the immediate, dramatic artistic style promoted in the Counter-Reformation. Rubens was a painter producing altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. He was also a prolific designer of cartoons for the Flemish tapestry workshops and of frontispieces for the publishers in Antwerp.

Rubens was born and raised in the Holy Roman Empire (modern-day Germany) to parents who were refugees from Antwerp in the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) and moved to Antwerp at about 12. In addition to running a large workshop in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England. Rubens was a prolific artist. The catalogue of his works by Michael Jaffé lists 1,403 pieces, excluding numerous copies made in his workshop.

His commissioned works were mostly history paintings, which included religious and mythological subjects, and hunt scenes. He painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house. He also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the royal entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria in 1635. He wrote a book with illustrations of the palaces in Genoa, which was published in 1622 as Palazzi di Genova. The book was influential in spreading the Genoese palace style in Northern Europe. Rubens was an avid art collector and had one of the largest collections of art and books in Antwerp. He was also an art dealer and is known to have sold important art objects to George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham.

He was one of the last major artists to make consistent use of wooden panels as a support medium, even for very large works, but used canvas as well, especially when the work needed to be sent a long distance. For altarpieces, he sometimes painted on slate to reduce reflection problems.

Rubens was born in Siegen, Nassau, to Jan Rubens and Maria Pypelincks. His father's family were long-time residents of Antwerp, tracing their lineage there back to 1350. Records show that a certain Arnold Rubens bought 'a house with court' in the Gasthuisstraat in Antwerp in 1396. The Rubens family belonged to the well-to-do bourgeois class, and its members were known to operate grocery shops and pharmacies.

Jan Rubens decided to study law and lived from 1556 to 1562 in the main cities of Italy to further his studies. He was awarded the degree of doctor of ecclesiastical and civil law by the Sapienza University in Rome. Upon his return to Antwerp, he became a lawyer and held the office of alderman in Antwerp from 1562 to 1568. Jan Rubens married Maria Pypelincks, who came from a prominent family originally from Kuringen, near Hasselt.

A large portion of the nobility and bourgeoisie in the Southern Netherlands at the time sided with the Reformation and Jan Rubens also converted to Calvinism. In 1566 the Low Countries were the victim of the iconoclastic fury, referred to in Dutch as the Beeldenstorm (pronounced [ˈbeːldə(n)ˌstɔr(ə)m]) during which Catholic art and many forms of church fittings and decoration were destroyed in unofficial or mob actions by Calvinist Protestant crowds as part of the Protestant Reformation. The ruler of the Low Countries—the Catholic Spanish king Philip II—reacted to the unrest by ordering the severe repression of the followers of the Reformation. In 1568, the Rubens family, with two boys and two girls (Jan Baptist (1562–1600), Blandina (1564–1606), Clara (1565–1580) and Hendrik (1567–1583)), fled to Cologne. As Calvinists, they feared persecution in their homeland during the harsh rule of the Duke of Alba, who, as the Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands, was responsible for implementing the harsh repression.

Jan Rubens became in 1570 the legal adviser of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange who at the time lived in Cologne. She later moved to Siegen about 90 kilometres from Cologne. Jan Rubens would visit her there while his family remained in Cologne. He had an affair with Anna of Saxony, which resulted in a pregnancy in 1571. Rubens was imprisoned in Dillenburg Castle and under threat of execution for his transgression. The illegitimate daughter, Christina of Dietz, was born on 22 August 1571.

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