Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/54

Rh 42 RUBENS influenced the painter of Vincenzo Gonzaga. Vigorous to the extreme in design, he reminds us of Michelangelo as much as any of the degenerate masters of the Roman school, while in decorative skill he seems to be descended from Titian and in colouring from Giulio Romano. Equally with this picture the Transfiguration, now in the museum at Nancy, and the portraits of Vincenzo and his consort, kneeling before the Trinity, in the library at Mantua, claim a large share of attention, apart from the interest awakened by the name of their author. Two years later we meet a very large altarpiece of the Circumcision at St Ambrogio at Genoa, the Virgin in a glory of Angels, and two groups of Saints, painted on the wall, at both sides of the high altar in the church of Santa Maria in Valicella, in Rome. Undoubtedly these works give an impression of grandeur and effectiveness, but, in the immediate vicinity of the finest productions of the Italian school, they rank higher as documentary evi- dence than in intrinsic value, and remind us of a saying of Baglione, who was acquainted with Rubens in Italy, " Apprese egli buon gusto, e diede in una maniera buona Italiana." While employed at Rome in 1608, Rubens received most alarming news as to the state of his mother's health. The duke of Gonzaga was then absent from Italy, but the dutiful son, without awaiting his return, at once set out for the Netherlands, though with the full intention of shortly resuming his post at court, as we gather from a letter to Annibale Chieppio, the Mantuan minister. When he arrived in Antwerp, Maria Pypelincx was no more. However strong his wish might now be to return to Italy, his purpose was overruled by the express desire of his sovereigns, Albert and Isabella, to see him take up a permanent residence in the Belgian provinces. Scarcely a year before, the archduke had unsuccessfully attempted to free the painter from his engagement at Mantua, and ha could not fail to take advantage of the opportunity now presented for the fulfilment of his wishes. On August 3, 1609, Rubens was named painter in ordinary to their High- nesses, with a salary of 500 livres, and " the rights, honours, privileges, exemptions," &c., belonging to persons of the royal household, not to speak of the gift of a gold chain. Not least in importance for the painter was his complete exemption from all the regulations of the guild of St Luke, entitling him to engage any scholars or fellow- workers, without being obliged to have them enrolled, a favour, it must be added, which has been the source of considerable trouble to the historians of Flemish art. Although so recently returned to his native land, Rubens seems to have been, with one accord, accepted by his countrymen as the head of their school, and the municipality was foremost in giving him the means of proving his acquirements. The first in date among the numerous repetitions of the Adoration of the Magi is a picture in the Madrid Gallery, measuring 12 feet by 17, and containing no fewer than eight-and-twenty life size figures, many in gorgeous attire, warriors in steel armour, horsemen, slaves, camels, <fec. This picture, painted in Antwerp, at the town's expense in 1609, had scarcely re- mained three years in the town-hall when it went to Spain as a present to Don Rodrigo Calderon, count .of Oliva. The painter has represented himself among the horsemen, bareheaded, and wearing his gold chain. Cumberland speaks of this picture as the standard work of its author, and certainly it was well calculated to bring Rubens to the front rank in his profession. From a letter written in May 1611 we know that more than a hundred young men were desirous to become his pupils, and that many had, " for several years," been waiting with other masters, until he could admit them to his studio. It was thus from the beginning regarded as a great favour to be admitted a pupil of Rubens. Apart from the success of his works, another powerful motive had helped to detain the master in Antwerp, his marriage with Isabella Brant (October 1609). Many pictures have made us familiar with the graceful young woman who was for seventeen years to share the master's destinies. We meet her at The Hague, St Petersburg, Florence, at Grosvenor House, but more especially at Munich, where Rubens and his wife are depicted at full length on the same canvass. " His wife is very hand- some," observes Sir Joshua Reynolds, "and has an agree- able countenance ; " but the picture, he adds, " is rather hard in manner." This, it must be noted, is the case with all those pictures known to have immediately followed Rubens's return, when he was still dependent on the assistance of painters trained by others than him- self. Even in the Raising of the Cross, now in the Antwerp cathedral, and painted for the church of St Walburg in 1610, the dryness in outline is very striking. According to the taste still at that time prevailing, the picture is tripartite, but the wings only serve to develop the central composition, and add to the general effect. In Witdoeck's beautiful engraving the partitions even disappear. Thus, from the first, we see Rubens quite determined upon having his own way, and it is recorded that, when he painted the Descent from the Cross, St Christopher, the subject chosen by the Arquebusiers, was altered so as to bring the artistic expressions into better accordance with his views. Although the subject was frequently repeated by the great painter, this first Descent from the Cross has not ceased to be looked upon as his masterpiece. Begun in 1611, the celebrated work was placed in 1614, and certainly no more striking evidence could be given of the rapid growth of the author's abili- ties. Rubens received 2400 florins for this picture. Although it is chance that has brought the Raising of the Cross and the Descent from the Cross into their present close juxtaposition, it is not improbable that their uniformity in size may have been designed. In many respects, Italian influence remains conspicuous in the Descent. Rubens had seen Ricciarelli's fresco at the Trinita de' Monti, and was also acquainted with the grandiose picture of Baroccio in the cathedral of Perugia, and no one conversant with these works can mistake their influence. But in Rubens strength of personality could not be overpowered by reminiscence; and in type, as well as in colouring, the Descent from the Cross may be termed thoroughly Flemish and Rubenesque. As Waagen justly observes : " the boldness of the composition, the energy in the characters, the striking attitudes, and the effects of the grouping, together with the glowing vigorous colouring, belong to his later style, whereas a few of the heads, par- ticularly that of the Virgin, display the careful execution of his earlier period. The interior of the wings, on which are painted the Visitation and the Presentation in the Temple, exhibit, on the other hand, a greater resemblance to the conjugal picture already alluded to, owing to a certain repose in action, a more elevated expression of delicacy and feeling in the characters, and a less glowing though still admirable colouring." Legend, in some way, connects Van Dyck with the Descent from the Cross, and ascribes to the great portrait painter an arm and shoulder of Mary Magdalene, which had been damaged by a pupil's carelessness. Plain truth here, once more, seems to contradict romance. Van Dyck was a pupil of Van Balen's in 1609, and most probably remained with him several years before coming to Rubens. If Sir Dudley Carleton could speak of Antwerp in 1616 as " Magna civitas, magna solitudo," there was no place