The Pride Of Flanders

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

The Art Of Rubens, Van Dyck, And The Flemish Portrait-Painters

Painter, courtier, scholar, and diplomatist, Peter Paul Rubens is one of the most picturesque figures in European history. In origin he belonged to the upper middle class, for though his grandfather had been a tanner of Antwerp, his father John Rubens (1530-87) had taken his degree at an Italian university and subsequently attained considerable civic importance in Antwerp. At that time Flanders was under Spanish rule, and trouble with the authorities over political and religious matters drove the Protestant John Rubens and his family into exile at Cologne. There he became the intimate counselor of William the Silent, and unfortunately, too intimate with his patron’s wife, the Princess of Orange. Their love affair was discovered and Dr John Rubens was thrown into prison, from which he was only released after the Prince had divorced his wife. He did not long survive his imprisonment, and died at Cologne in 1587.

All this had its influence on young Peter Paul, who was born at Siegen, Westphalia, in 1577, one year after the death of Titian. Political complications had already driven his father from Antwerp, and so the boy spent his early childhood in exile. He was only ten years old when his father died, and then his mother returned to Antwerp, taking her three children with her, Blandina the eldest, a young woman of twenty-three, Philippe a boy of thirteen, and Peter Paul the youngest. By a curious coincidence, just as only one year separated the birth of Peter Paul Rubens from the death of Titian, so again one year divided the death of John Rubens from that of Paul Veronese (1588), whose art his son was destined to develop and glorify.

After her daughter’s marriage in 1590, the widow Rubens was able to say in a letter that both her sons were earning their living—so we know that their schooldays in Antwerp were short: Philippe obtained a place in the office of a town councillor of Brussels, while Peter Paul was Page of Honor to the Princess Margaret de Ligne-Aremberg. This gave the future diplomatist his first experience of court life; but it was short one, for already he felt art to be his true vocation, and in 1591 the lad of fourteen was allowed to begin his training as a painter in the studio of his cousin Tobias Verhaeght.

Here it may be well to recall that since the death of Mabuse in 1533 there had been no painter of the first rank in Flanders. Lucas da Heere (1534-84), a capable portrait-painter, though born at Ghent, worked chiefly in France and England. Returning to Flanders he could get little employment, and he died in poverty at Paris. A more successful portrait-painter, Antonio Moro (1519-78), better known as Sir Anthony More, also began his career in Ghent, but found more appreciation of his art in England and Spain. The most important of the immediate predecessors of Rubens were two families of artists, the Pourbus and the Breughels. Peter Pourbus (1510-84), a Bruges painter of portraits and religious subjects, had a son Frans Pourbus (1545-81), who settled in Antwerp. He in turn had a still more famous son, Frans Pourbus the Younger (1570-1622) who painted portraits not only in Antwerp but also at the Court of Henri IV in Paris. Young Pourbus, seven years older than Rubens, was one of the few of his contemporaries in Antwerp who not only never worked for Rubens but may have had some influence on his early style.

The founder of the Breughel family was Peter Breughel (c. 1525-69), whose dramatic ‘Adoration of the Magi’ was secured for the National Gallery in 1921. Another interesting example of his forcible but primitive style, ‘Sacking a Village’ is at Hampton Court. This painter had two sons, Peter, known as ‘Hell’ Breughel (1564-1638), because of his choice of subjects, and a younger, Jan, nicknamed ‘Velvet’ Breughel (1568-1625), on account of the softness of his painting. The father made Brussels his headquarters, but the sons settled in Antwerp, where, notwithstanding his seniority, Jan Breughel eventually became an assistant to Rubens.

The Pride Of Flanders (continued)