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Rubens: Picturing Antiquity
The first study devoted to classical art’s vital creative impact on the work of the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens.
For the great Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), the classical past afforded lifelong creative stimulus and the camaraderie of humanist friends. A formidable scholar, Rubens ingeniously transmitted the physical ideals of ancient sculptors, visualized the spectacle of imperial occasions, rendered the intricacies of mythological tales, and delineated the character of gods and heroes in his drawings, paintings, and designs for tapestries. His passion for antiquity profoundly informed every aspect of his art and life.
Including 170 color illustrations, this volume addresses the creative impact of Rubens’s remarkable knowledge of the art and literature of antiquity through the consideration of key themes. The book’s lively interpretive essays explore the formal and thematic relationships between ancient sources and Baroque the significance of neo-Stoic philosophy, the compositional and iconographic inspiration provided by exquisite carved gems, Rubens’s study of Roman marble sculpture, and his inventive translation of ancient sources into new subjects made vivid by his dynamic painting style.
This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa from November 10, 2021, to January 24, 2022.
For the great Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), the classical past afforded lifelong creative stimulus and the camaraderie of humanist friends. A formidable scholar, Rubens ingeniously transmitted the physical ideals of ancient sculptors, visualized the spectacle of imperial occasions, rendered the intricacies of mythological tales, and delineated the character of gods and heroes in his drawings, paintings, and designs for tapestries. His passion for antiquity profoundly informed every aspect of his art and life.
Including 170 color illustrations, this volume addresses the creative impact of Rubens’s remarkable knowledge of the art and literature of antiquity through the consideration of key themes. The book’s lively interpretive essays explore the formal and thematic relationships between ancient sources and Baroque the significance of neo-Stoic philosophy, the compositional and iconographic inspiration provided by exquisite carved gems, Rubens’s study of Roman marble sculpture, and his inventive translation of ancient sources into new subjects made vivid by his dynamic painting style.
This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa from November 10, 2021, to January 24, 2022.
192 pages, Hardcover
Published November 2, 2021
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January 22, 2023
This is definitely more of a coffee table book than anything else. But it is a good one. Some helpful nuggets of information are scattered within the essays, but what you’ll end up appreciating the most is the high quality reproductions this book proudly showcases.
Interesting and new for me was how much Rubens studied ancient gems, how intricate these gems were, and how they inspired his works.
Quotes/Excepts:
- With directness and concision, Rubens states the essential requirements for an artist to achieve perfection: the painter must possess a deep knowledge of ancient sculpture, make “judicious” use of statues so that his representations do not “smell of stone,” and must be discerning and choose the “best” statues.
- (On Daniel in the Lions Den) The patient suffering and deliverance of the young martyr from certain death represented the ideals of fortitude and faith for both Christians and Neo-Stoics, who greatly valued the virtue of constancy exemplified by the Old Testament episode. For Daniel’s upturned and open-mouthed gaze of entreaty, Rubens adapted the dramatic expression and pose of the famous marble bust of the Dying Alexander, considered a model of fortitude.
- (On The Fall of Phaeton) portrays the celestial mayhem when Jupiter hurls a thunderbolt toward Apollo’s sun chariot driven by his reckless son Phaeton, snapping the reins and sending the terrified horses and the chariot’s hapless driver tumbling toward the burning earth. In Rubens’ astonishing composition, dazzling shafts of light pierce the sky and the arching form of the wheel of the zodiac while winged Horae, one whom cowers in a manner of Crouching Venus, look on in both terror and awe. In order to achieve the desired effect of horses and bodies in frenetic disarray, Rubens drew on battle scenes and mythologies by leading Renaissance artists, particularly Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. The subject, recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, could be understood in Neo-Stoic terms, with Phaeton’s fall epitomizing the perils of exceeding one’s limits, and appealed to scholars, notably Rubens’ brother Phillip. The Fall of Phaeton may have been intended as a pendent to Hero and Leander (New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery), a rare subject from Ovid’s Heroides, which features a similar swirling scene of suspended bodies. A number of ancient literary sources, including Ovid (Metamorphoses) and Virgil (Georgics), informed Rubens’ dramatic interpretation, which compresses the deaths of the ill-fated lovers into a single composition.
- Whereas the 16th century artists tended to adopt static points of view – frontal or profile – or to cram several sketches onto a single sheet of paper, Rubens studied single sculptures over and over again, copying them from many, and often unusual, points of view and devoting a single page to each. No one before him had shown such a painstaking interest in understanding the formal principles of antique statues, both in their overall composition and in their individual details.
- (On The Four Philosophers) In this large early masterpiece, Rubens portrays himself at the far left, slightly aloof from the other figures: his brother Phillip (on the left) and Phillip’s friend and fellow student Jan Woverius (on the far right) flank their teacher Justus Lipsius, sitting at the center. A niche on the right contains the marble bust of Seneca beside a vase of flowers: the four tulips – two closed and two open – are a clear reference to the fact that two of the four men portrayed had already died (Lipsius and Phillip, in 1606 and 1611, respectively). The dog in the foreground is probably Mopsulus, one of Lipsius’s three beloved dogs whom Woverius inherited. The dog is a symbol not only of vigilance but also of strength, intelligence, and loyalty, and these, according to Lipsius, are also the attributes of a scholar. The portrait has been convincingly interpreted as a sort of elegy in memory of Rubens’ brother Phillip and as an overt homage to Lipsius and his teachings. Seneca watches over this gathering of learned men who embody the Neo-Stoic ideal advanced by Lipsius, centered on the values of male friendship and moral solidarity, learned discussion and the study of antiquity (evoked by the background view of the Palatine Hall). Woverius refers to these values in the Consolatio for the death of Phillip addressed to Peter Paul: “It was my good fortune at that time to be part of the same contubernium; and there arose between us, from our common prayers and studies, this bond of most sacred friendship, which not even the grievous parting of death has been able to break.”
- (On the Death of Seneca) Rubens chose to depict the last moments of the Stoic philosopher’s life when, surrounded by friends and despairing students, he urged them to hold back their tears and show apathy, or courageous imperturbability, in the face of pain. The young man on the left in the painting takes down the philosopher’s last words; two armored soldiers behind him confirm the forced nature of Seneca’s action; and, on the right, the physician Statius Annaeus cuts a vein in the philosopher’s left arm. This detail diverges from Tacitus’s account, in which the physician only attempts to alleviate Seneca’s suffering by giving him poison to hasten death, and introduces a Christian interpretation of the philosopher’s thought, whereby suicide becomes martyrdom. The reference to the iconography of Christian martyrs is also clear in Seneca’s rapturous upturned gaze, while his immersion in the basin is a reference to baptism. The Christian interpretation of Seneca’s thought once again recalls the Neo-Stoic philosophy advocated by Justus Lipsius, who considered Seneca’s suicide the equivalent of an execution, and his attitude in extreme suffering the demonstration of a moral strength that made him akin to Christ.
- The artist’s agate vase (“Rubens Vase”) decorated with vines and handles in the form of heads of Pan is skillfully transformed into Pan himself in several paintings (i.e. Two Satyrs)
Interesting and new for me was how much Rubens studied ancient gems, how intricate these gems were, and how they inspired his works.
Quotes/Excepts:
- With directness and concision, Rubens states the essential requirements for an artist to achieve perfection: the painter must possess a deep knowledge of ancient sculpture, make “judicious” use of statues so that his representations do not “smell of stone,” and must be discerning and choose the “best” statues.
- (On Daniel in the Lions Den) The patient suffering and deliverance of the young martyr from certain death represented the ideals of fortitude and faith for both Christians and Neo-Stoics, who greatly valued the virtue of constancy exemplified by the Old Testament episode. For Daniel’s upturned and open-mouthed gaze of entreaty, Rubens adapted the dramatic expression and pose of the famous marble bust of the Dying Alexander, considered a model of fortitude.
- (On The Fall of Phaeton) portrays the celestial mayhem when Jupiter hurls a thunderbolt toward Apollo’s sun chariot driven by his reckless son Phaeton, snapping the reins and sending the terrified horses and the chariot’s hapless driver tumbling toward the burning earth. In Rubens’ astonishing composition, dazzling shafts of light pierce the sky and the arching form of the wheel of the zodiac while winged Horae, one whom cowers in a manner of Crouching Venus, look on in both terror and awe. In order to achieve the desired effect of horses and bodies in frenetic disarray, Rubens drew on battle scenes and mythologies by leading Renaissance artists, particularly Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. The subject, recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, could be understood in Neo-Stoic terms, with Phaeton’s fall epitomizing the perils of exceeding one’s limits, and appealed to scholars, notably Rubens’ brother Phillip. The Fall of Phaeton may have been intended as a pendent to Hero and Leander (New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery), a rare subject from Ovid’s Heroides, which features a similar swirling scene of suspended bodies. A number of ancient literary sources, including Ovid (Metamorphoses) and Virgil (Georgics), informed Rubens’ dramatic interpretation, which compresses the deaths of the ill-fated lovers into a single composition.
- Whereas the 16th century artists tended to adopt static points of view – frontal or profile – or to cram several sketches onto a single sheet of paper, Rubens studied single sculptures over and over again, copying them from many, and often unusual, points of view and devoting a single page to each. No one before him had shown such a painstaking interest in understanding the formal principles of antique statues, both in their overall composition and in their individual details.
- (On The Four Philosophers) In this large early masterpiece, Rubens portrays himself at the far left, slightly aloof from the other figures: his brother Phillip (on the left) and Phillip’s friend and fellow student Jan Woverius (on the far right) flank their teacher Justus Lipsius, sitting at the center. A niche on the right contains the marble bust of Seneca beside a vase of flowers: the four tulips – two closed and two open – are a clear reference to the fact that two of the four men portrayed had already died (Lipsius and Phillip, in 1606 and 1611, respectively). The dog in the foreground is probably Mopsulus, one of Lipsius’s three beloved dogs whom Woverius inherited. The dog is a symbol not only of vigilance but also of strength, intelligence, and loyalty, and these, according to Lipsius, are also the attributes of a scholar. The portrait has been convincingly interpreted as a sort of elegy in memory of Rubens’ brother Phillip and as an overt homage to Lipsius and his teachings. Seneca watches over this gathering of learned men who embody the Neo-Stoic ideal advanced by Lipsius, centered on the values of male friendship and moral solidarity, learned discussion and the study of antiquity (evoked by the background view of the Palatine Hall). Woverius refers to these values in the Consolatio for the death of Phillip addressed to Peter Paul: “It was my good fortune at that time to be part of the same contubernium; and there arose between us, from our common prayers and studies, this bond of most sacred friendship, which not even the grievous parting of death has been able to break.”
- (On the Death of Seneca) Rubens chose to depict the last moments of the Stoic philosopher’s life when, surrounded by friends and despairing students, he urged them to hold back their tears and show apathy, or courageous imperturbability, in the face of pain. The young man on the left in the painting takes down the philosopher’s last words; two armored soldiers behind him confirm the forced nature of Seneca’s action; and, on the right, the physician Statius Annaeus cuts a vein in the philosopher’s left arm. This detail diverges from Tacitus’s account, in which the physician only attempts to alleviate Seneca’s suffering by giving him poison to hasten death, and introduces a Christian interpretation of the philosopher’s thought, whereby suicide becomes martyrdom. The reference to the iconography of Christian martyrs is also clear in Seneca’s rapturous upturned gaze, while his immersion in the basin is a reference to baptism. The Christian interpretation of Seneca’s thought once again recalls the Neo-Stoic philosophy advocated by Justus Lipsius, who considered Seneca’s suicide the equivalent of an execution, and his attitude in extreme suffering the demonstration of a moral strength that made him akin to Christ.
- The artist’s agate vase (“Rubens Vase”) decorated with vines and handles in the form of heads of Pan is skillfully transformed into Pan himself in several paintings (i.e. Two Satyrs)
Displaying 1 of 1 review