DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68073#0205
FLEMISH PAINTING
i79
Painter to Albert and Isabella, Regents of the Netherlands. In that
year also Rubens married Isabella Brandt. His studio at Antwerp
now became famous and attracted students from every town in
Europe.
He had barely established himself when he wrote to a friend in
1611: “On every side I am overwhelmed with solicitations. Without
the least exaggeration, I may assure you that I have already had to
refuse more than a hundred pupils.”
In 1621 Rubens was called by Marie de’ Medici to Paris to decorate
the gallery in the Palace of the Luxembourg. At this period the
style Rubens, which he introduced on his return from Italy and which
was inspired by the late Italian Renaissance, was all the rage.
In 1622 he published a book on the Palaces of Genoa; and from the
preface we learn that he was perfectly delighted to see the “old style
known as barbarous, or Gothic, go out of fashion, to the great honor
of the country, and disappear from Flanders, giving place to sym-
metrical buildings designed by men of better taste and conforming
to the rules of the Greek and Roman antique.”
Rubens was a favorite with several kings and when he was neither
painting nor teaching, he was visiting some foreign court on an em-
bassy. On one of these visits to London in 1629-30 he was knighted
by Charles I.
In 1630 he married again (Isabella Brandt having died in 1626), unit-
ing himself to his first wife’s niece, Helena Fourment, who was but
sixteen. Rubens now built a palatial house in Antwerp, where, as
well as in his Chateau de Steen in the vicinity, he lived a happy, in-
dustrious, and splendid life, having everything the world could give
in the way of honors and joys. Rubens’s influence upon the artists of
his own time was very great and he dominated the entire art taste of
Europe during the first three quarters of the Seventeenth Century.
Religious subjects, mythological subjects, landscapes, hunting
scenes, portraits, and still-life,—everything came easily to his brush.
Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote a fine analysis of Rubens, in which he
says: “The striking brilliancy of his colors, and their lively opposition
to each other, the flowing liberty and freedom of his outline, the
i79
Painter to Albert and Isabella, Regents of the Netherlands. In that
year also Rubens married Isabella Brandt. His studio at Antwerp
now became famous and attracted students from every town in
Europe.
He had barely established himself when he wrote to a friend in
1611: “On every side I am overwhelmed with solicitations. Without
the least exaggeration, I may assure you that I have already had to
refuse more than a hundred pupils.”
In 1621 Rubens was called by Marie de’ Medici to Paris to decorate
the gallery in the Palace of the Luxembourg. At this period the
style Rubens, which he introduced on his return from Italy and which
was inspired by the late Italian Renaissance, was all the rage.
In 1622 he published a book on the Palaces of Genoa; and from the
preface we learn that he was perfectly delighted to see the “old style
known as barbarous, or Gothic, go out of fashion, to the great honor
of the country, and disappear from Flanders, giving place to sym-
metrical buildings designed by men of better taste and conforming
to the rules of the Greek and Roman antique.”
Rubens was a favorite with several kings and when he was neither
painting nor teaching, he was visiting some foreign court on an em-
bassy. On one of these visits to London in 1629-30 he was knighted
by Charles I.
In 1630 he married again (Isabella Brandt having died in 1626), unit-
ing himself to his first wife’s niece, Helena Fourment, who was but
sixteen. Rubens now built a palatial house in Antwerp, where, as
well as in his Chateau de Steen in the vicinity, he lived a happy, in-
dustrious, and splendid life, having everything the world could give
in the way of honors and joys. Rubens’s influence upon the artists of
his own time was very great and he dominated the entire art taste of
Europe during the first three quarters of the Seventeenth Century.
Religious subjects, mythological subjects, landscapes, hunting
scenes, portraits, and still-life,—everything came easily to his brush.
Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote a fine analysis of Rubens, in which he
says: “The striking brilliancy of his colors, and their lively opposition
to each other, the flowing liberty and freedom of his outline, the