Home localities often
provide the richest troves of work by their native artists. If you
want to savor the biggest caches of paintings by the glorious
Missouri-boatmen painter Caleb Bingham (1811-1879), visit the art
museums in St. Louis and Kansas City.
Americans readily recognize the name of Peter Paul Rubens, and they
will find his paintings in our well-endowed museums. Significant
collections are found in the Louvre, Paris, and the Prado, Madrid.
But to be really immersed in the master’s work, go to his home
town, Antwerp, Belgium, or to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts not far
away in Bruxelles.
The Antwerp Museum.
The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Bruxelles (Brussels, if you prefer; I don’t)
These two museums house
fabulous Flemish collections, but their web sites are inscrutable at
best. I wanted to say abominable. The Antwerp Museum is working on a
cyber tour of its Rubens Room, but the tour is not working. And don’t
hie off to the museum after reading the tales I am going to tell
about Rubens. The museum is closed for renovations until sometime in
2017.
A corner of the Rubens Room.
Before embarking on a
string of stories about Peter Paul, let me introduce several other
Antwerp School artists you’d encounter in these two localities.
The list is long. It includes 24 very fine artists from the 16th
century and 23 from the 17th whose works most Americans have never
encountered.
One of my favorites
from the 16th was Paul Bril, whom I had never heard of until I
encountered several of his paintings in an obscure side gallery of
the Vienna Museum. That put me on the lookout for more of his work in
other museums. (I recounted this is an early “Moments”
column.)
Here are some of the
best-known Antwerp School artists, mostly from the 17th:
Peter Breugel the Elder (1525-1569)
Painter and printmaker,
may be the best known of that list of 24 16th-century artists. He
painted Biblical interpretations and so many peasant scenes that he
sometimes is referred to as “Peasant Breugel.”
He entered Antwerp’s
Guild of St. Luke (painter’s guild) in 1551. He went off to
Italy, via France, a year or two later, then returned home via the
Alps, which he depicted in a number of drawings. He married a
painter’s daughter in 1563.
Antwerp was caught up
in the political/religious conflict of the Low Countries, part of the
Habsburg Empire, governed by Spain. The northern provinces followed
Protestant leaders who wanted religious freedom and independence from
Spain. The Protestant iconoclasts perpetrated the destruction of all
church imagery — in painting and sculpture.
Especially in the
southern provinces the Habsburgs attempted strict uniformity to the
Catholic church, leading to the Inquisition. Towards the end of
Breugel’s life this led to the outbreak of the Eighty Years
War.
Peter Breugel the Elder, The Seven Deadly Sins, Anger, engraving.
Peter Breugel, The Tower of Babel (Vienna museum)
This is perhaps the
artist’s most famous depiction. One of his peasant scenes can
be seen in my column last December about the best Christmas banquet
ever.
Peter Breugel the Younger (1565-1636)
In time, there were
five Breugels who became members of the Guild of St. Luke. Peter
Breugel the Younger was called the “Hell Breugel” because
several paintings depicting fire and grotesque imagery were once
attributed to him. They were really done by his brother, Jan Breugel
the Older.
Peter the Younger was a
good painter in his own right, but he was also an extraordinary
copyist. One of his dad’s most famous works was Winter
Landscapes with Skaters and a Bird Trap. The son and his workshop
painted at least 60 replicas. He made at least 25 copies of the
Elder’s St. Jean the Baptist Preaching.
Peter Breugel the Younger, Proverbs
Jan Breugel the Younger (1601-1678)
Taught by his father,
the Younger spent his life painting in a Flemish Baroque style in the
manner of his father. He was not quite as good as his father and had
a lighter touch. He also copied some of his father’s paintings
and put his father’s signature on them, in effect, forging
them.
Jan Breugel the Younger, Paradise, c. 1620
Anthony Van Dyke (1599-1641)
Born to prosperous
Antwerp parents, Van Dyke, artistically gifted since birth, was a
close friend to Jan Breugel the Younger. When he was only 18 he was
admitted as a master painter to the Guild of St. Luke. He soon became
the chief assistant to Rubens, who referred to the nineteen-year-old
as the best pupil he had.
In 1620, he went to
England briefly to work for King James I. In England he saw his
first Titian, and its impact changed his style from the compositional
lessons he had learned from Rubens. After four months in England, he
took off for Renaissance, Italy, where he remained for six years
studying the old masters.
He went back to
Antwerp, where he made a name for himself as a portrait painter. In
1630, he was the court painter to the Habsburg Governor of Flanders,
the Archduchess Isabella. Until Cromwell dispatched him, King Charles
I of England was a passionate collector of art and artists. In 1628,
Charles bought the collection of the Gonzagas of Mantua. Four years
later he added Van Dyke to his collection as a court painter, one of
several he was luring to England.
Van Dyke stayed in
England, where he painted portraits of King Charles more than 40
times. Not to mention 30 of the queen.
Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyke, 1627-28. Louvre Museum
Anthony Van Dyke, Charles I at the Hunt, ca. 1635
Frans Snyders (1579-1657)
Although Snyders
painted popular scenes and still lifes, he made a huge reputation as
a painter of animals. He often collaborated with fellow Antwerp
artists Rubens, Van Dyke, and Jacob Jordaens.
His father was the
keeper of a wine inn frequented by artists. Frans was a student of
Peter Breugel the Younger and was accepted as a master by the Guild
of St. Luke in 1602. Carrying a letter of introduction from Jan
Breugel the Elder, who wanted him to paint a replica of a replica of
a Titian portrait, Frans took off for Italy.
Frans returned to
Antwerp and married the sister of two well-known painters (not
Breugels). He helped Rubens decorate the hunting pavilion of Philip
IV of Spain and the Royal Alcazar in Madrid.
He collaborated with
Snyders in painting 60 hunting paintings, followed by a commission
for 18 more. He became Dean of the Guild of St. Luke. When Rubens
died, Snyders was the official appraiser for the estate.
Frans Snyders and Peter Paul Rubens, The Recognition of Philopoemen (Prado Museum)
Snyders, Cook at a Kitchen Table with Dead Game
Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678)
Unlike the other
Antwerpers we have examined, Jordaens never traipsed off to Italy to
study old masters, although he did admire some of the painters from
Northern Italy. His longest away from home was a trip to Holland. One
of 11 children fathered by a prosperous linen dealer, Jacob could
have gone anywhere to study or play.
Subsequent to the older
Rubens and Van Dyke, he became the leading baroque painter of the
time. After Rubens died, Jordaens became the painter of choice for
large-scale commissions. He excelled in painting large set pieces
depicting Bible subjects, much like his contemporary Jan Breugel the
Elder. His conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism did not
conflict with his passion for religious paintings.
When he enrolled in the
Guild of St. Luke, it was as a watercolor artist. This technical
skill led him into creating cartoons for handwoven tapestries, for
which he became equally famous.
Jacob Jordaens, Self Portrait with Parents, Brothers, and Sisters, 1615
Jacob Jordaens, Return of the Holy Family from Egypt
This introduction to
some of the important artists from the School of Antwerp sets up my
series of tales about Rubens. However, to understand Rubens’s
adventures, we need to take closer looks at Antwerp (next week), the
Guild of St. Luke, and the Friday Market (the following week). Then
the tales of Rubens take off. He was much more than a painter. Think
of him as a faker and an international spy.
Lawrence Jeppson is an art consultant, organizer and curator of art exhibitions, writer, editor
and publisher, lecturer, art historian, and appraiser. He is America's leading authority on
modern, handwoven French tapestries. He is expert on the works of William Henry Clapp, Nat
Leeb, Tsing-fang Chen, and several French artists.
He is founding president of the non-profit Mathieu Matégot Foundation for Contemporary
Tapestry, whose purview encompasses all 20th-century tapestry, an interest that traces back to
1948. For many years he represented the Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie and
Arelis in America.
Through the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, the American Federation of
Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, and his own Art Circuit Services he has been a contributor to
or organizer of more than 200 art exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Taiwan.
He owns AcroEditions, which publishes and/or distributes multiple-original art. He was co-founder and artistic director of Collectors' Investment Fund.
He is the director of the Spring Arts Foundation; Utah Cultural Arts Foundation, and the Fine
Arts Legacy Foundation
Lawrence is an early-in-the-month home teacher, whose beat is by elevator. In addition, he has spent the past six years hosting and promoting reunions of the missionaries who served in the French Mission (France, Belgium, and Switzerland) during the decade after WWII.