In 1626 Rubens visited Holland, saw the principal painters of that country, and lost his wife in the same year. The picture of the two sons of this marriage is in the Lichtenstein Gallery, in Vienna. In 1627 Rubens was employed in diplomatic service at the Hague, and in the next year he was ambassador to Philip IV. of Spain, from the Infanta Isabella, widow of the archduke Albert. In 1629 we find the painter still acting as a diplomatist, and this time to the Court of England. The courtly manner, handsome person, and versatile genius of Rubens made him a favorite at Whitehall.
On his return to Antwerp in 1630, he married his second wife, Helena Fourment, a girl of sixteen, belonging to one of the richest families in the city. She served him many times as a model for his pictures. The great master died in 1640, wealthy, honored, and famous, not only in his own city, but in many another. He was buried in the Church of St. Jacques at Antwerp.
In speaking briefly of the chief works of Rubens, we come first to the “Descent from the Cross,” in Antwerp Cathedral. We find in this wonderful work perfect unity, and a nobler conception and more finished execution than usual. Of the coloring it is needless to speak. But even here in this masterpiece we notice the absence of spirituality. The dead Christ is an unidealized study, magnificently painted and drawn, but unredeemed by any divinity of form, or pathos of expression in the head, so that we discover no foregleam of the Resurrection; it is a dead body, no more. Among the eighteen pictures by Rubens in the Antwerp Museum, is a “Last Communion of St. Francis,” which has a great reputation, but suffers from the ignoble type of St. Francis’s head. It was painted in 1619.
In the Gallery at Munich we find ninety-five paintings by this master, illustrating all his styles. The masterpiece is the “Last Judgment.” Passing to Vienna, we find in the Lichtenstein Gallery the portraits of Rubens’s “Two Sons,” and a long series of pictures illustrating the “History of Decius.” In the Belvedere is a magnificent portrait of his second wife, “Helena Fourment.” In the Louvre we find forty-two paintings by Rubens. The greater number of these belong to the series illustrating “The Life of Marie de Medicis.” At Madrid in the Museo del Rey is a “Glorified Virgin,” a truly wonderful work. Turning to Russia, we find in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg some fine works by this master; especially deserving of notice is the “Feast in the House of Simon.” Coming home to England we find this great master again largely represented. The “History of Ixion on the Cloud” is in the gallery of the Duke of Westminster; and “Diana and her Nymphs surprised by Satyrs,” painted for Charles I. in 1629. Blenheim contains many great works by Rubens.
ANTOON VAN DYCK,
The greatest of the pupils of Rubens, the son of a merchant of good standing, was born at Antwerp, in 1599. At ten years of age he was studying art under Van Balen, and was registered in the Guild as his pupil; from him he proceeded to the studio of Rubens. His wonderful precocity enabled Van Dyck to become a master in the Guild of Antwerp painters when only nineteen. In 1620 he was engaged as an assistant by Rubens, and in the following year he was in England employed by James I. This royal service soon ended, and in 1623 Van Dyck went to Italy; in Venice he copied many of Titian’s works, and spent some time in Rome, and a much longer time at Genoa. Wherever he went he was busy with brush and canvas, and in Genoa he painted many of his best pictures. From 1626 to 1632 Van Dyck was in Antwerp, diligently working at some of his greatest pictures, historical subjects and portraits. In the Cassel Gallery there are fourteen of his portraits, among which that of the “Syndic Meerstraten” is one of the most characteristic of his art at this period. At the close of these six years of Antwerp work a new world opened to him. His first visit to England seems to have been unfruitful, but in 1632 he became one of the court painters of Charles I. Success and honor now crowned the new works of Van Dyck. He received a salary of £200 a year as principal painter to the Stuart court, and was knighted by the king. Nothing succeeds like success, and we find Van Dyck sought after by the nobility and gentry of England, and at once installed as a fashionable portrait painter.
Later, after his return to Flanders, in 1640, with his wife, a lady of the Scottish house of Ruthven, he went to Paris, hoping to obtain from Louis XIII. the commission to adorn with paintings the largest saloon in the Louvre, but here he was doomed to disappointment, as the work had been given to Poussin. Van Dyck returned to England, and found that he had fallen, like his patron, Charles I., “on evil tongues and evil days.” The Civil War had commenced. There was no time now for pipe or tabor, for painting of pictures or curling of lovelocks, and whilst trumpets were sounding to boot and saddle, and dark days were coming for England, Van Dyck died in Blackfriars, on the 9th of December, in 1641, and was buried hard by the tomb of John of Gaunt, in old St. Paul’s.
Possessed of less power of invention than his great master, Van Dyck shows in his pictures that feeling which is wanting in the works of Rubens. It is infinitely more pleasant to gaze on a crucifixion, or some other sacred subject, from the pencil of Van Dyck, than to examine the more brilliant but soulless treatment of similar works by his master. As a portrait painter Van Dyck occupies with Titian and Velasquez the first place. In fertility and production he was equal to Rubens, if we remember that his artistic life was very brief, and that he died at the age of forty-two. He lacked the inexhaustible invention which distinguishes his teacher, and generally confined himself to painting a “Dead Christ” or a “Mater Dolorosa.” Of Van Dyck’s sacred subjects we may mention the “Taking of Jesus in Gethsemane” (Museum of Madrid), “Christ on the Cross” (Munich Gallery), the “Vision of the Blessed Hermann Joseph” (Vienna), the famous “Madonna with the Partridges” (St. Petersburg), and the “Dead Christ,” mourned by the Virgin, and adored by angels, in the Louvre.
Portraits by Van Dyck are scattered widely throughout the galleries of Europe, and his best are probably in the private galleries of England. In all his portraits there is that air of refinement and taste which rightly earned for Van Dyck the name which the Italians gave him, Pittore Cavalieresco.