Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/367

* BUBENS. 383 RUBENS. plainly shows the coiipeialioii of Van Dyck. Alythology is representeil by ".lupitm- ami Cal- liito"' (1013) ami "lli'leaj.'fi- ami Alulanta," hoth in the Cassel Gallerv; ■"Xcptiine ami . i]>lii- tiite" (c.1612-14), "Baeehanal" (c.1618-20. with Van Dyck), and "Amlronu-ila" (C.1U38), all in the Beilin iluseum ; ■■Ju]iitL'r and Antiope" and the •"Freezing Venus" (l)utli, 114, Antwerp Mu- seum) ; "W'lius in llie Smithy of Vulcan" (Brus- sels Museum); "Judgment of Paris" (Madrid Museum! ; "Boreas and Oreithyia" (Vienna Acad- emy) : "Bacchanal." •'The Dauglitcrs of Cecrops," and ••Toilet of Venus" (all in the Liechtenstein Gallery, ieuua). Of allegories there are the '•Hero' Crowned by Victory" (Dresden), replicas in Cassel (1017), Munich, and Vienna; ••Tigris and Abundantia" (C.IGIO, Saint Petersburg) ; '•The Four Quarters of the Globe" (Vienna Mu- seum ) ; ••The Terrors of War"' ( 1G38, Palazzo Pitti, Florence). In ltj2^2 Rubens was called to Paris by ilaria de' Medici, to adorn the Luxem- bourg Palace with the cliief episodes from her life. The twenty-four paintings executed within three ,years by his pupils from his designs were taken by him to Paris, where they now occupy a separate room in the Louvre; the sketches of eighteen of them are in the Piuakothek at Slunich. Another series to represent the history of Henry IV. was only partly finished (1628-30). For Louis Xlll. he" comid'eted (lt'22) twelve cartoons for tapestry with the history of Con- stantine the Great. Having already undertaken diplomatic missions in 1623-2.5, for the Infanta Isabella (Regent after the death, in 1621. of Archduke Albert), he was intrusted in 1627 with the negotiations concern- ing the conclusion of peace between England and iSpain. He went to Madrid in 1628 and thence ■with the King's instructions in l(i29 to London, where he brought his mission to a successful end- ing and was knighted by Charles I. in 1630. The same distinction was conferred upon him by Philip IV. of Spain. In Madrid, as well as in London, his brush was in great demand, especially for the painting of portraits; in Madrid he also renewed the study of Titian, which strongly in- fluenced the works of his later period. In 1626 his wife had died, leaving him with two sons, and in December. 1630, he married the youthful He- lene Fourment, who bore him two more sons and three daughters. Her features are preserved to us in numerous portraits, which her admiring husband never tired of painting at various stages. Xnteworthy among the master's later works, and some of the earlier not as yet mentioned, are the "Conversion of Saint Bavon" (1824, Ghent Ca- thedral) ; "Adoration of the Magi" (1824), Ant- werp Museum, an imposing composition, contain- ing many figures over life-size, said to have been painted 'in a fortnight ; '•Lot's Family Leaving Sodom" (1025. Louvre); "Assumption" (1626, altarpiece, Antwerp Cathedral ) : Last Sup- per" (completed 16.32, Brera, Milan); "Holy Familv Under an Apple-tree" (Vienna JIuseum) ; '•The Vav to Golgotha" (c.l036. Brussels Muse- um); "Samson Taken Prisoner" and •'Massacre of the Innocents (c.1637, both in the Pinakothck, Munich) ; •'Bathsheba at the Bath" and ••Quos Ego" (1634. both in Dresden Gallery); ••Saint Francis Receiving His Stigmata" (c.l63S. Co- luime :Museum): "Crucifixion of Peter" (1639, Saint Peter's, Cologne), vigorous, but of repellent fidelity to nature ; and a ••.Santa Conversazione," for the altar of his niortuiiry chapel, one of hiii last and finest works. A work of (!reHl thought in the expression of religious eiithusiaNni is "The Brazen Serpent" (c.]«)2.")-3(l), in the .Madrid .Mu setMu. Of liintorieal coni|i<>siliiin-< the inn»l pmnii- nent are •'Saint .Ambrose Forbidding the Knipeior Thcodosius to Knter the lhur. ure nioilels of arrangement and coloring, and may lio judged b,v the examples preserved in the galleries of Lon- don, Dresden. .Munich, ienna. ihr l,<uivre, and the Palazzo Pitti, Florence. Even tlw genre is in- geniously represented by •'La Konda," a ilanie of Italian pea.sants, in the Madrid .Mu'-eum, and the splendid ••Kirmess" (c.l636), in the Louvre. Of the famous so-called "Garden of Love," styled by Kubens himself "Conversatie il la mode." the pic- ture in the Madrid Jluseum is the original, wliilc the more familiar siK'eimen in Dresden is a good .school-])iece. A less restrained atmosphere iht- vades the subject called the "Festival of Venus," in the ieiina Museum, which cotitains another genre piece, entitled "The Cbateau-Park."" His eminence as a portrait painter is attested b.v the numerous specimens in the foremost galleries of Europe, among which may be mentioned the group portrait in the Palazzo Pitti. Florence, known as the "Four Philosophers" (the artist, his brother Philip, and two scholars), and the portraits of himself in Windsor Castle (with Hclene Fourment), and in the 'ienna .Miiseiiiii. Among several of Isabella Brant, that in Saint Petersburg (c.16^20) is the finest. Most attrac- tive are ""Rubens' Sons" (c.1627). in the Liech- tenstein Gallery, Vienna, and in Dresden, llelene Fourment is depicted in the galleries of .iiister- dam. The Hague, Munich (three, besides the "Family (Iroup in the Garden"'), Florence, and Saint Petersburg, also with two children, in the Louvre (unfinished), and as '"Saint Cecilia."' in Berlin. Celebrated' is the portrait of 1620, known as the ""Cha|)eau de iiaille."' in the Na- tional Gallery, London. Others of note arc those of Jcaii Charles de Cordes and his wife (1618), in Brussels; of Baron Henri <le Vice), in the Louvre; of Maria de' Medici, in Madrid; of Dr. van Thulden (c.1620), and of an "Old Scholar" ( 103.5), in Munich ; and of •'.Ian van der Moelen" (1610), in the Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna. For several vears a victim to pout, the great master, in the 'fullness of his power, snccuinbed to iiaralvsis of the heart at Antwerp on May 30, 1640, aiid was buried with great pomp in the Church of Saint Jacques. An Eclectic in the high- est sense of the term, his inspirations .Icrived from the great Italian masters served to estab- lish a bond of union between the art of Italy ami that of the North, without in any wise involving a sacrifice of his individual tendency toward a so»nd realism. In power of invention he can be compared only to Dilrer and Raphael. The lofty strain of his composition,