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742! CHAPTER 25 The Baroque in Northern Europe

of War is a chaotic scene !lled with twisting, straining, foreshort- ened male and female bodies, but Rubens used the commission from the Medici duke as an opportunity to express his desire— as a diplomat as well as a citizen-painter—for peace in an age when war was constant. Consequences of War is a commentary on the "irty Years’ War (see “Rubens on Consequences of War,” page 743).

Marie de’ Medici. Rubens’s interaction with royalty and aris- tocracy provided the Flemish master with an understanding of the ostentation and spectacle of Baroque (particularly Italian) art that appealed to the wealthy and privileged. Rubens, the born cour- tier, reveled in the pomp and majesty of royalty. Likewise, those in power embraced the lavish spectacle that served the Catholic Church so well in Italy. "e magni!cence and splendor of Baroque imagery reinforced the authority and right to rule of the highborn. Among Rubens’s royal patrons was Marie de’ Medici, a member of the famous Florentine banking family and widow of Henry IV (r. 1589–1610), the !rst Bourbon king of France. She commis- sioned Rubens to paint a series of huge canvases memorializing and glorifying her career. Between 1622 and 1626, Rubens, work- ing with amazing creative energy, produced with the aid of his many assistants 21 historical-allegorical pictures and three por- traits designed to hang in the queen’s new palace, the Luxembourg, in Paris. (Today, they are on display in a huge exhibition hall in the Louvre, the former palace of the kings of France.) Remark- ably, each of the paintings, although conceived as an instrument of royal propaganda to #atter the queen and impress her sub- jects and foreign envoys, is also a great work of art—a supreme testimony to Rubens’s skill and the talents of his small army of assistants.

!gures, showed his prowess in representing foreshortened anatomy and the contortions of violent action. Rubens placed the body of Christ on the cross as a diagonal that cuts dynamically across the picture while inclining back into it. "e whole composition seethes with a power that comes from strenuous exertion, from power- ful muscles taut with e$ort. "e tension is emotional as well as physical, as re#ected not only in Christ’s face but also in the fea- tures of his followers. Bright highlights and areas of deep shadow inspired by Caravaggio’s tenebrism (%&'(. 24-17, 24-17A, 24-17B, and 24-18), hallmarks of Rubens’s work at this stage of his career, enhance the drama.

"e human body in action, draped or undraped, male or female, would remain the focus of Rubens’s art throughout his long career. "is interest, combined with his voracious intellect, led Rubens to copy the works of classical antiquity and of the Italian masters. During his last two years in Rome, Rubens made many black-chalk drawings of great artworks, including !gures in Michel- angelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes (%&'. 22-17) and the ancient marble group (%&'. 5-89) of Laocoön and his two sons. In De imitatione statuarum (On the Imitation of Statues), a treatise Rubens wrote in Latin, the artist stated: “I am convinced that in order to achieve the highest perfection one needs a full understanding of the [ancient] statues, indeed a complete absorption in them; but one must make judicious use of them and before all avoid the e$ect of stone.”2

Consequences of War. Once Rubens established his repu- tation, commissions from kings, queens, dukes, and other elite patrons throughout Europe soon followed. One of these commis- sions was Consequences of War (%&'. 25-3), which Rubens painted in 1638 for Ferdinando II de’ Medici, the grand duke of Tuscany (r. 1621–1670). Like Elevation of the Cross (%&'. 25-2), Consequences

25-2 P!"!# P$%& R%'!(), Elevation of the Cross, from Saint Walburga, Antwerp, 1610. Oil on wood, center panel 159 1 780 * 119 1 120, each wing 159 1 780 * 49 110. Antwerp Cathedral, Antwerp.

In this triptych, Rubens explored foreshortened anatomy and violent action. The whole composition seethes with a power that comes from heroic exertion. The tension is emotional as well as physical.

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