Peter Paul Rubens

Peter Paul Rubens was the star of the European Baroque: painter, diplomat and entrepreneur, with a workshop that filled entire palaces with pictures.

Life

Born in Siegen in 1577, he grew up in Antwerp. From 1600 to 1608 he lived in Italy, studying Titian, Michelangelo and antiquity. Back in Antwerp he became court painter to the Spanish governors and built up a large workshop in which Anthony van Dyck also worked. As a diplomat he negotiated between Spain and England. For Marie de’ Medici he painted a cycle of pictures on her life. He died in Antwerp in 1640.

Style & technique

Rubens’s pictures are full of movement: diagonals, swirling robes, horses, clouds and vigorous, vital bodies. He painted quickly, with glowing colours and warm flesh, often first as a small oil sketch that his workshop then transferred to a large scale. Church, court and mythology – with him, everything became a feast for the senses.

Look closely

  • The diagonal: a slanting line often runs right across the picture.
  • The skin: rosy, warm and almost translucent.
  • The oil sketches: this is where you see Rubens’s own quick hand best.

Timeline

  • 1577: Born in Siegen.
  • 1600–1608: Years in Italy.
  • 1609: Court painter to the governors in Antwerp.
  • 1622–1625: Medici cycle for Paris.
  • 1640: Dies in Antwerp.

Works in the museum