Rubens, Peter Paul

Flemish painter. He was one of the greatest figures of the baroque period. Bringing the exuberance of Italian baroque to northern Europe, he created innumerable religious and allegorical paintings for churches and palaces. These show mastery of drama and movement in large compositions, and a love of rich colour and texture. He also painted portraits and, in his last years, landscapes. The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus (1617; Alte Pinakothek, Munich) is typical.

Rubens's energy was prodigious. In less than 40 years he produced more than 3,000 paintings. He created masterpieces in every genre: religious, for example The Descent from the Cross (c. 1611–14; Antwerp Cathedral); portraiture, the so-called Chapeau de pailles (c. 1620; National Gallery, London); peasant life, the Kermesse (c. 1622; Louvre, Paris); allegory, War and Peace (c. 1629–30; National Gallery, London); and landscape, the Château de Steen (c. 1635–37; National Gallery, London).

As a colourist and technician he was remarkable; he devised a classic oil method of thinly painted shadow and loaded highlight. His studio-factory was a model of efficient administration, his assistants so able and his supervision so well directed, that the standard of works not due to his hand alone is consistently high. He summoned into being a whole school of engravers, occupied in reproducing his works. His influence on other painters – Velázquez, Watteau, Delacroix, and Constable among them – was enormous.

He was also a great collector (of ancient marbles and gems, pictures, manuscripts, and books), a classical scholar who knew and corresponded with people of learning throughout Europe, and a diplomat who spoke five languages.