Landscapes by Rubens
The Flemish and European
Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens was the
most renowned northern European artist of his day, and is now widely
recognized as one of the foremost painters in Western art history. He
was the proponent of the Baroque style which emphasized
movement, color, and sensuality. By completing
the fusion of the realistic tradition of Flemish painting with the
imaginative freedom and classical themes of Italian Renaissance
painting, he fundamentally revitalized and redirected northern
European painting.
- Farm at Laken (1618)
- Return of the Prodigal Son (1618)
- Summer (1620)
- Landscape with Cows and Wildfowlers (1630)
- Landscape with Saint George and the Dragon (1630)
- An Autumn Landscape with a View of Het Steen (1635)
- Landscape with a Rainbow (1635)
- Tournament in front of Castle Steen (1637)
- Landscape with a Rainbow (1638)
- The Village Fete (Flemish Kermis) (1638)
Farm at Laken (1618)
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This landscape display a realistic vision. Rubens not only painted the milkmaids and the cattle from preliminary drawings made from life. This piece of Brabant countryside is seen from a low viewpoint. It is noticeable that the peasant girls are painted larger than was usual for such additional figures in Flemish landscape painting. Depicted in the same sculptural style as the figures in contemporary history paintings, they are placed emphatically in the foreground. Moreover, they are approached sympathetically. The woman standing, carrying a basket on her head, is even painted in a very dignified pose, obviously based on the classical contrapposto. This explicitly positive approach to simple countryfolk is the more striking when it is remembered that in the genre painting the image of the peasant would continue to bear a pejorative accent until almost the middle of the seventeenth century.
Return of the Prodigal Son (1618)
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When Rubens died in 1640, he still possessed his Prodigal Son of 1618. Amongst his many grand altarpieces and dramatic mythological subjects, the creation of this rural scene, intended for his own living room, must have given him a great deal of pleasure. The biblical subject - depicted bottom right - serves merely as a vehicle for the painting of one of his earliest landscapes.
Summer (1620)
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The painting is a companion scene to Winter (also in the Royal Collection), although it was only when both pictures were in the collection of Frederick, Prince of Wales, that they seem to have been treated as a pair.
X-ray examination reveals that the priming on all the additional pieces of canvas is identical, but differs from that of the central section of this work. It appears that the design on the initial piece of canvas had not been fully resolved in all respects by the time the extra portions were added. The join on the left is on a line with the tall windswept trees, which seem to have been painted over the sky and therefore may be regarded as an adaptation of the original design, which most probably incorporated a clear view through to the horizon. On the right the design has been more radically changed as a result of the addition. A steep bank (still visible to the naked eye) originally closed the composition, but this was painted out so that the horizon could be extended in the upper half and a further group of farm buildings introduced in the middle distance. The addition along the lower edge allowed for the horse and cart in the immediate foreground. In effect, if the additions are discounted, the original composition remains an entity in its own right, but the changes alter the dynamics of the painting, placing greater emphasis on the peasants wending their way to market.
The composition of Summer is distinguished. There is an emphasis on contrasting diagonals that reinforces the sense of movement begun by the figures in the foreground. The eye is plunged into the distance across a glorious landscape that is positively pantheistic in its celebration of nature (note the cow being mounted in the centre of the composition). Regardless of differences in scale and style, a telling comparison can be made between Summer and The Flemish Fair by Jan Brueghel the Elder. Interestingly, it has been suggested that the composition of Summer depends upon a lost painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder entitled On the Way to Market, only known today through an anonymous drawn copy in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich.
Landscape with Cows and Wildfowlers (1630)
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On the edge of a wood, through which flows a stream, stands a herd of cattle. The last rays of the evening sun are shining through the trees, bathing the landscape in warm light. As maids from the nearby farm milk the cows, a wildfowler fires at a duck. The great variety of tree-trunks and foliage, of plants and animals, typifies that natural scheme of things in which air and water, light and warmth, sunshine and rain are provided in accordance with God's plan. That a peaceful life and the threat of death are never far apart is demonstrated by the disturbing proximity of the fowler with his gun to the women at work.
Of the large and varied number of pictures Rubens completed in his lifetime, relatively few were landscapes, and of these the Berlin painting is one of the few in large format; it has a close affinity with two others, one of which is in the Royal Collection in London, the other in the Munich Pinakothek. Several of the figures in all three pictures are alike, although they are disposed in different ways. This does not detract from the significance of each individual work, but it does throw an interesting light on the painter's methods of working and on his habit of referring back to earlier sketches and studies. To judge by its composition and style of painting, the Berlin picture was the last of the group and must have been painted around 1630. In designing the forest, Rubens broke away almost entirely from previous sketches and with surprising artistic licence developed a quite novel arrangement of light and shade. The steep angle of the sun's rays creates a remarkable feeling of space and atmosphere. The lively brushwork gives an impression of complete spontaneity on the part of the artist, who was in no way inhibited by having to make corrections and may even have allowed for an extension of the panel-format.
This painting was in the Duc de Richelieu's collection in the seventeenth century, together with two other Rubens works now in the Berlin Gallery, Andromeda chained to the Rock and The Shipwreck of Aeneas. In a description of the collector's art-treasures by Roger de Piles, published in 1677, this landscape is entitled Les Vaches. The Duke, a great-nephew of the famous Cardinal of the same name, took the opportunity, while on Louis XIV's campaigns in the Netherlands, to buy important works by Rubens.
Landscape with Saint George and the Dragon (1630)
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Saint George and the Dragon symbolises the close relationship established between Rubens and the court of Charles I. The subject honours the patron saint of England and of the Order of the Garter, founded by Edward III in 1348. The features of Saint George are traditionally stated to be those of Charles I, while the figure of the Empress Cleodelinde is, according to the same tradition, intended to be Queen Henrietta Maria. The verdant landscape is also a form of flattery in so far as it is inspired by the English countryside. Indeed, the background was described by Croft-Murray as 'probably Rubens's single essay in English landscape.' Some of the buildings are identifiable, although their contiguity is purely imaginary. On the left of the composition, for example, is the square church tower of St Mary Overy (now Southwark Cathedral) and to the right of this possibly the Banqueting House with Westminster Abbey before Hawksmoor's towers were added. Further down river on the right of the composition is an interpretation of Lambeth Palace.
The canvas was extended by the artist, evidently sometime between 1630 and 1635. These additions betoken extensive rethinking of the design. The original concept was to have been contained within the central section and is recorded in a drawing in Stockholm (National Museum). This was preceded by a study in Berlin of motifs occurring in the right half of the composition. These drawings show that the horseman on the right was at first balanced on the left by a woman standing with a child, forms which can still be discerned between the trunks of the two trees and which are even more obvious by X-ray. They were omitted, however, when the composition was enlarged, possibly because they did not constitute a sufficiently strong counterpoint. The other elements of the composition, especially on the right, were merely rearranged on a broader scale. It is conceivable that some iconographical refinements were also made in order to sharpen the allegorical meaning. What remains of this central part is of good quality, particularly the flickering evening light and damp atmosphere so characteristic of the Thames Valley, and can be assigned to Rubens himself. The additions, however, are less adroitly handled and may have been left to studio assistants. The initial composition perhaps relates to the engraving of the same subject by Lucas van Leyden. The works of Pordenone, Titian, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Veronese and the Carracci family all inspired the artist in carrying out this political allegory which, in the context of the reign of Charles I, clearly has religious connotations with particular reference to Saint George.
An Autumn Landscape with a View of Het Steen (1635)
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At the end of his life, Rubens's art tended to be meditative. His favourite dwelling-place was a country-house just outside Antwerp, from which his gaze could lose itself in the limitless calm of the Flemish plain.
Landscape with a Rainbow (1635)
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This painting displays the spirit of pastoral literature rather directly, which is emphasized by the Italianate appearance. This is obvious in the figures, the mountain view in the background and the architecture of the buildings.
Tournament in front of Castle Steen (1637)
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In his last years Rubens spent the summer months in his country residence, Het Steen, at Elewijt, between Mechelen and Brussels, which he had acquired in August of 1634. There he painted the largest and most luminous landscapes of his entire career; Landscape with Rainbow and Tournament in front of Castle Steen, the latter featuring a wholly imaginary joust. They show us complementary views of a countryside pullulating with human, animal and plant life. They are odes in paint to the natural order of creation, an Arcadian vision of man living in harmony with nature. At Het Steen, Rubens enjoyed the fruits of his long and industrious career, but he also added a new facet to his reputation and ensured his historical influence as a landscape painter. We might cite, in particular, the landscapes of Constable.
Landscape with a Rainbow (1638)
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Rubens painted this picture at the end of his life when he was living in his country residence at Het Steen. The contrast between the two halves of the composition, a sunlit prosperity on the left and a gloomy wood on the right, suggest an analogy with the Last Judgment, the rainbow representing the Arc of the Covenant.
The late landscapes by Rubens, such as this work, with their atmospheric appearance, often in subdued golden light of an early summer evening, make an elegiac impression. This makes Rubens come close to the spirit of Titian who exercised such a profound influence on his other late work.
The Village Fete (Flemish Kermis) (1638)
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With the famous Flemish Kermis, Rubens reinforced his reputation as a
Protean artist by showing himself the sole heir of the great Bruegel -
whose works he collected. At Het Steen, he was immensely happy,
wandered among the trees, discovered his landscape gifts, and
anticipated the discoveries of Impressionism. Whereas the landscape
artists of his time tended to consider the little figures with which
their paintings were studded as mere accessories, to be entrusted for
the most part to the diligence of their assistants, Rubens restored
man's prominence, and showed him sharing in the seasonal life of
nature. In the Brueghelian Kermis, Rubens returned to a traditional
Flemish scene, with all its familiar episodes: here the joyful tread
of the dancing, there the coarse antics of the drunk. But the sheer
sweep of the painting frees the subject from its usual tenor of
vulgarity and triviality. There is no Naturalism in this painting,
rather a kind of ballet whose different scenes unfold beneath the
poetry of Rubens' sky.
Peter Paul Rubens Art
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Baroque
Peter Paul Rubens
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