Reconcile. That was the Rubensian verb. He applied it to his style, in which he fused pictorial tendencies that until then seemed insoluble: Flemish realism with the idyllic Italian taste, the coloring of Titian with the monumental drawing of Michelangelo. And he also applied it to his life: none of the great absolutist monarchs – English, French or Spanish – wanted to do without his services, and he took advantage of that closeness with the powerful to try to persuade them that Europe was crying out for peace. .
The era of Pieter Pauwel Rubens (Siegen, Westphalia, 1577-Antwerp, 1640) was dark and virulent. The Thirty Years' War was added to the conflict between the Calvinist Netherlands in the north and the Catholics in the south, motivated, among other causes, by the desire of the Protestant German princes to free themselves from the Habsburg empire.
They were wars that became internationalized to the extreme. Each power on the continent fell into one faction or another, to pursue its own goals or harm its rivals. Intrigues and betrayals were an everyday occurrence. It was the time of the goings-on of the valid, characters to whom the sovereigns entrusted the reins of the government, such as the Duke of Buckingham, Cardinal Richelieu or the Count, Duke of Olivares.
Rubens was a Catholic whose family came from Antwerp (southern Netherlands), and he decided to settle in this city in 1608, after a youthful journey through Italy. He already enjoyed a certain fame and it did not take long for him to be appointed court painter to the archdukes Isabel Clara Eugenia and Albert of Austria, the rulers of the Catholic Netherlands.
He was a man of immense culture, a learned pictor (learned painter) in the Renaissance style, with exquisite manners and an enormous ability, despite not belonging to the nobility, to move in courtly environments. He fervently believed that his profession, that of a painter, was worthy of the rank of knight: he even painted himself with the emblem of this dignity, the sword, even before it had been granted to him.
Very soon he became a trusted man of the archduchess and she recommended him as a diplomat to Philip IV.
He carried out various missions on behalf of Spain, but not because he believed that the way in which the Empire was managed from the court of Madrid was appropriate. Rubens was a practical man: he thought that Spanish supremacy, like that of the times of Charles V, was better than the continuous wear and tear of the time. The pax hispanica was preferable to war.
His beloved Antwerp had perhaps suffered more than any other city from the consequences of the struggles between Catholics and Calvinists. She suffered looting, went from one side to another and, finally, had to see how the artery that gave her life was strangled: the River Scheldt. The stream by which goods once came from all over the known world was now in the hands of the north. Antwerp had reached 100,000 inhabitants in the previous century; Now, however, it was barely halfway. The painter, therefore, had more than enough evidence of the disaster, and he dedicated part of his energy to combating it.
He knew how to mix art and politics like no one else. Archduchess Isabel Clara Eugenia never had qualms about sharing the artist with her, and he traveled to Madrid, London and Paris to create the imagery of the great absolutist courts.
The monarchs were enthusiastic about their lavish portraits, full of ingenious allegories that made reference to their triumphs, their virtues or their faith. Rubens was a consummate master of satisfying vanities: for the French queen mother, Marie de' Medici, he made no more and no less than 24 oil paintings depicting the high points of her life.
The doors of the great palaces were wide open. He was the ideal diplomat. Philip IV doubted him, but he surrendered to the evidence when in 1629 Rubens traveled to London and managed to secure an armistice between Spain and England.
Rubens, however, was not limited to diplomatic tasks and flattering monarchs and nobles with his dazzling portraits. His work capacity was immeasurable (he left behind around 1,500 canvases) and he had time to paint personal works, allegories in which he expressed his vision of Europe at the time.
Before leaving the English capital, the painter gave a painting to Charles I of England: The Blessings of Peace. Rubens gave the monarch a lesson in pacifism. He offered him a vision of the benefits that come with harmony between nations.
Barely a decade later, the Antwerp artist painted the reverse of the coin: The consequences of war. A devastating painting, an anti-war cry only comparable to those that Goya, with his Disasters of War, and Picasso, with his Guernica, would utter much later. The latter, by the way, was directly inspired by Rubens: they have elements in common (such as the mother and the son) and even the same structure, although Picasso camouflaged it by orienting the movement to the right, the opposite of flamenco.
What happened between The Blessings of Peace and The Consequences of War? Why this registry change? Rubens' diplomatic missions after that to London fell on deaf ears. The war on the continent worsened: the two great Catholic powers, Spain and France, entered into direct confrontation. As one critic would write, “Rubens was a pacifist surrounded by warmongering fanatics.” For the rulers of that time, war was the only way out: no country could allow itself to appear weak.
The painter ended up abandoning diplomacy in 1635. The straw that broke the camel's back of his patience was a mission that, in reality, never came to be: the rebellious northern provinces denied him access to negotiate a peace with the south. The Protestants hated him deeply and it would not take long for them to praise his own genius of painting: Rembrandt.
The “painter of princes and prince of painters” died in 1640 with the honor of having been perhaps the most successful artist who had ever lived. His list of illustrious clients surpassed that of Titian, and he was knighted in both England and Spain. The eclecticism of his style earned him the most laudatory praise and he undertook colossal projects that no artist had ever done before. He amassed a fortune and ran a workshop that produced masters such as Van Dyck and Jordaens. His private life was happy, he loved his two wives and surrounded himself with one of the largest collections of paintings and antiques of the time.
Only peace resisted him. The Treaties of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War and in which Spain recognized the independence of Holland, would not take place until eight years after his death. He had to settle for living in a time when the only light was the glimpses of his own paintings.
This text is part of an article published in number 431 of the magazine Historia y Vida. Do you have something to contribute? Write to us at redaccionhyv@historiayvida.com.
