An exhibition in Frankfurt's Städel museum explores the work of the Flemish painter, as well the precursors and contemporaries who influenced him. Rubens dominated the 17th-century art world like perhaps no other artist.
Image: KHM-Museumsverband
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'The Power of Transformation': Rubens in Frankfurt's Städel Museum
The Baroque painter was seen as an outstanding genius of his era. The Frankfurt exhibition shows how Rubens was influenced by Greek mythology and fellow artists, both his 17th-century contemporaries and his predecessors.
Image: KHM-Museumsverband
'Crown of Thorns'
"Ecce homo!" ("Behold the man!") According to the Gospel of John, these were the words that Roman governor Pontius Pilatus used to present the tortured Jesus to the people. Rubens depicted this moment in the above painting, "Crown of Thorns," created at an early stage of his career around 1612. Biblical stories have fascinated artists of various eras.
Image: The State Hermitage Museum, Sankt Petersburg 2017
A stylish self-portrait
Peter Paul Rubens painted this self-portrait around 1638, roughly two years before his death. He had already painted a similar work in 1625 on a commission from the future King Charles I of England, who was a passionate admirer of Rubens. In both paintings, the artist wears the fashionable accessories of the time: a huge hat, a robe with a white collar and a cape.
Image: KHM-Museumsverband
Judith beheading Holofernes
It was actually another artist, the Italian painter Caravaggio, who produced the best known portrayal the devout Jewish widow Judith beheading the Assyrian war leader Holofernes. But Rubens was likewise fascinated by this story from the Old Testament. He finished his own interpretation of the Biblical scene between 1609-10.
Image: Städel Museum-Artothek/U. Edelmann
'Prometheus Bound'
According to Greek myth, the Titan Prometheus stole fire from the gods and passed it on to the humans. For this he was condemned to torture: bound to a rock, an eagle would feed on his liver every day, which would then magically grow back after being consumed. It took Rubens and fellow artist Frans Snyders, who painted the eagle, roughly six years before they finished this masterwork in 1618.
Image: Philadelphia Museum of Art
'Death of Hippolytus'
Greek mythology was a reoccurring theme in Rubens' work. Here, the hero Hippolytus rejects the love of his stepmother, who subsequently commits suicide — but not before she had claimed that her stepson desired her. The sea god Poseidon commands a sea monster to attack Hippolytus. The hero's horse-drawn carriage turn overs, and he dies a tragic death.
Image: The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Copying a Venetian master
In the mid 1630s, Rubens came across a work by Venetian artist Titian entitled "The Worship of Venus"(1518-19). Rubens copied the painting and its depiction of little cupids frolicking and kissing, also modeling the scene's lighting after Titian. A major difference between the original work and the copy, however, is the size. Rubens' version (1635, above) is almost twice as wide as Titian's work.
Image: Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
'Pan and Syrinx'
Ovid's "Metamorphoses" tell the story of the mythological god Pan who lusts after the nymph Syrinx. Rubens painted the sexual hunt in the 1620s for German Count Wilhelm VIII of Hessen-Kassel. Rubens depicts Pan as he unsuccessfully attempts to grab Syrinx, but only manages to capture a fistful of the reeds, which Syrinx will transform into. The reeds were painted by Jan Brueghel the Elder.
Image: MHK, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister/Ute Brunzel
Titian's 'Venus and Adonis'
In this scene out of classical mythology, Titian depicts the nude back of Venus as she attempts to stop Adonis from going hunting with his dogs. Titian focused on strong gender contrasts by depicting a dressed, strongly-built warrior opposing a naked and weak woman. Rubens drew inspiration from Titian's 1555 work, completing his own version around 1614.
Image: J. Paul Getty Museum
'Venus Frigida'
The painting "Venus Frigida" by Rubens (1614, above) depicts yet another kind of Venus. The work refers to an old saying of Roman poet Terence. Bereft of the company of Ceres, goddess of grain, and Bacchus, god of wine, poor Venus is freezing — meaning that without bread and wine she starves to death. Venus wraps her little son Cupid in her veil, appearing weak in her total nakedness.
Image: lukasweb.be - Art in Flanders vzw
'The Judgement of Paris'
This painting from 1639 shows yet another Greek mythological scene. The young Prince Paris is faced with a difficult choice: He must decide which of the three goddesses — Athena, Hera or Aphrodite — is the most beautiful one. The messenger god Hermes holds out a golden apple, the prize to be awarded. All await Paris' decision.
Image: Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
'The Hero of Virtue, Mars, Crowned by the Goddess of Victory'
Mars, depicted as a victorious and virtuous Roman general, stands on the personification of strife that he has conquered. As a reward, Nike, the goddess of victory, honors Mars with a laurel wreath. Commissioned by an Antwerp-based marksmen's guild for their banquet hall, Rubens finished this fantastic work around 1615-16.
This impressive painting by Rubens was completed around 1617-18. Out of jealousy, Athena gave Medusa her hair made of snakes; she feared the beautiful gorgon as a rival and so turned her into a monster. The goddess was also responsible for Medusa's gruesome death. According to Greek mythology, Athena let her be decapitated by Perseus, the son of Zeus.
Image: KHM-Museumsverband
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Peter Paul Rubens' success as one of the 17th century's most influential artists was far from predestined. He was born on June 28, 1577, in the town of Siegen in the western part of present-day Germany, the sixth out of seven children in the family of lawyer Jan Rubens and his wife Maria Pypelincks. Both parents came from of Antwerp in present-day Belgium, but religious upheaval had forced the family to flee the Flemish city prior to Rubens' birth. Only after his father's death did the family move back to Antwerp, where the young Peter Paul served as a page boy for Countess Marguerite de Ligne.
Antwerp guild and Italian architecture
However, Rubens wanted to achieve a lot more in his life than this court position; above all else, he wanted to paint. He sought out apprenticeships with some of the most significant artists of his era, among them Tobias Verhaecht, Adam van Noort and Otto van Veen. Rubens had just turned 21 years old when he was accepted as a master into the guild of Saint Luke, an Antwerp-based association for those in the painting trade.
Two years later, he moved to Italy where he became the court painter of Duke of Mantua. Deeply impressed by Italian buildings, he studied architecture and the arts of antiquity, themes which continued to influence him throughout his life.
'The Judgement of Paris' by Peter Paul RubensImage: Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
After his mother fell seriously ill, he moved back to Antwerp in 1608. His reputation as an excellent painter had long spread to his hometown, so the city's representatives did their best to keep him there. They showered him with praise, lucrative jobs, and even the promise of tax exemption. They also offered him the enticing position of court painter to Austrian Archduke Albert VII and his wife, Spanish princess Isabella Clara Eugenia, who at the time were the sovereign rulers of the Netherlands. Rubens stayed in Antwerp and became rich.
A massive studio
The former home of the Flemish painter, today a museum, is proof of his huge success. Rubens himself designed the building, modeling it after an Italian palace. It also housed his studio, in which he employed up to 100 painters at a time.
The large workshop was necessary because Rubens' art was much sought-after. It would have been impossible for him to complete all his commissions by himself. Instead, he frequently created only the draft of a work and left its completion to his employees, who included such illustrious artists as Anthony van Dyck, Frans Snyders and Jan Bruegel the Elder.
'Prometheus Bound' is attributed Rubens and Frans Snyders, who painted the eagleImage: Philadelphia Museum of Art
Rubens loved bright colors
Rubens became known for his bright colors, well-balanced proportions, figures in motion and full-figured women. This last stylistic tendency even gave rise to the expression "Rubenesque," which refers to a figure of pleasant and ample plumpness.
He increasingly painted for the nobility, including the French Queen Marie de' Medici and her son King Louis XIII, as well as the English King Charles I.
Rubens didn't limit himself to working in his studio.He also served as an advisor at the royal courts in Madrid, Paris, The Hague and London. His even used his diplomatic talents to help negotiate a ceasefire between Catholic Spain and the Protestant Netherlands, who were at war with each other following the religious Reformation. Hardly any other artist had such a deep impact on politics during this era.
Rubens also managed to combine his own business and politic interests. His diplomatic missions often profited from his business contacts, and vice versa. During the 1630s, he focused once again primarily on his art.
Rubens and other artists who influenced him
After suffering from gout for many years, Rubens died in Antwerp on May 30, 1640. He was buried there in the city church of St. Jacobs. After his death, his widow Helene Fourment asked his close colleague Johann Bockhorst to complete his unfinished works.
With his dramatic and large-scale paintings, Peter Paul Rubens influenced Baroque art like no other painter. The exhibition in Frankfurt's Städel Museum, entitled "Rubens: The Power of Transformation," attempts to explore the influences that shaped his art, including such titans of Italian painters as Titian and Tintoretto, and enabling visitors to follow the development of visual subjects and styles. The show also focuses on Rubens' artistic innovations that impacted the following generations of artists.
"Rubens: The Power of Transformation " can be seen at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt from February 8 — May 21, 2018.
