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.
Two years later we meet a very large altar-piece 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. These works remind us of a saying of Baglione, who was acquainted with Rubens in Italy: Apprese egli buon gusto, e diede in una maniera burma Italiana.
While employed at Rome in 1608, Rubens received most alarming news as to the state of his rnother's health. The duke of Mantua was then absent from Italy, but the dutiful son, without awaiting his return, at once set out for the Netherlands. 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, Albrecht and Isabella, to see him take up a permanent residence in the Belgian provinces. On the 3rd of August 1609 Rubens was named painter in ordinary to their Highnesses, 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 gild of St Luke, entitling him to engage any pupils or fellow-workers without being obliged to have them enrolled—a favour which has been 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 ft. by 17, and containing no fewer than eight-and-twenty life-size figures, many in gorgeous attire, Warriors in steel armour, horsemen, slaves, camels, &c. This picture, painted in Antwerp, at the town's expense, in 1609, had scarcely remained 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. 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.
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, Berlin, Florence, at Grosvenor House, but more especially at Munich, where Rubens and his wife are depicted at full length on the same canvas. “His wife is very handsome,” observes Sir Joshua Reynolds, “and has an agreeable 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 himself. Even in the “Raising of the Cross,” now in the Antwerp cathedral, and painted for the church of St Walburga 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 abilities. Rubens received 2400 iiorins for this picture. In many respects, Italian influence remains conspicuous in the “Descent from the Cross.” 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.
If Sir Dudley Carleton could speak of Antwerp in 1616 as Magna civitas, magna solitudo, there was no place nevertheless which could give a wider scope to artistic enterprise. Spain and the United Provinces were for a time at peace; almost all the churches had been stripped of their adornments; monastic orders were powerful and richly endowed, gilds and corporations eager to show the fervour of their Catholic faith, now that the “monster of heresy” seemed for ever quelled. Gothic churches began to be decorated according to the new fashion adopted in Italy. Altars magnified to monuments, sometimes reaching the full height of the vaulted roof, displayed, between their twisted columns, pictures of a size hitherto unknown. No master seemed better fitted to be associated with this kind of painting than Rubens. The temple erected by the reverend fathers in Antwerp was almost entirely the painter's work, and if he did not, as we often find asserted, design 'the front, he certainly was the inspirer of the Whole building. Hitherto no Fleming had undertaken to paint ceilings with foreshortened figures, and blend the religious with the decorative art after the style of those buildings which are met with in Italy, and owe their decorations to masters like Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto. No fewer than forty ceiling-panels were composed by Rubens, and painted under his direction in the space of two years. All were destroyed by fire in 1718. Sketches in water-colour were taken some time before the disaster by de¢Wit, and from these were made the etchings by Du Pont which alone enable us to form a judgment of the grandiose undertaking. In the Madrid Gallery we find a general view of the church in all its splendour. The present church of St Charles in Antwerp is, externally, with some alteration, the building here alluded to.
Rubens delighted in undertakings of the vastest kind. “The large size of a picture,” he writes to W. Trumbull in 1621, “gives us painters more courage to represent our ideas with the utmost freedom and semblance of reality. . . . I confess myself to be, by a natural instinct, better htted to execute works of the largest size.” The correctness of this appreciation he was very soon called upon to demonstrate most strikingly by a series of twenty-four pictures, illustrating the life of Marie de Médicis, queen-mother of France. The gallery at the Luxembourg Palace, which these paintings once adorned, has long since disappeared, and the complete work is not exhibited in the Louvre. Drawings, it seems, had been asked from Quentin Varin, the French master who incited Poussin to become a painter, but Rubens was ultimately preferred. This preference may in some degree be ascribed to his former Connexion with the court at Mantua, Marie de Médicis and the duchess of Gonzaga being sisters. From the cradle to the day of her reconciliation with Louis XIII., we follow Marie de Médicis after the manner in which it was customary in those days to consider personages of superior rank. The Fates for her have spun the silken'and golden thread; ]uno watches over her birth and entrusts her to the town of Florence; Minerva, the Graces and Apollo take charge of her education; Love
