Intimate View of Rubens

The current exhibit at the Fogg Museum is the first in a series of joint exhibitions with the Morgan Library to be held here and in New York. In inaugurating the series, the local museum staff found its inspiration in the recent publication of the definitive edition of Rubens' letters by the Harvard University Press. Nothing that the letters contain little about the painter-diplomat's family life or his art, the Museum has attempted to at least do something about the latter by composing an exhibit of Rubens' drawings and oil sketches from American collections.

American taste regarding the great Flemish master has favored graphic works in European museums. The Puritan strain seems to be repelled by the fleshiness of the great Baroque paintings as well as by their Counter-Reformation fervor and ostentation. Although they often lack the immediate brilliance and awesome sweep of the larger paintings, the smaller, more intimate works have their own merits. They are clear and concentrated and, most important, Rubens' own work. The better-known canvases were often almost wholly executed by helpers under Rubens' direction. These paintings were the work of the master both in plan and in execution. In their personal and extraordinary detail they chronicle his creative genius in its full splendor.

Rubens once remarked, "My endowments are of such a nature that I have never wanted courage to undertake any design however vast in size or diversified in subject." The truth of this is evidenced in the variety of subjects even in this limited collection of his works. There are statue sketches, mythical representations, portraits, landscapes, religious paintings, allegories, historical paintings and genre pieces.

In his early drawings the Classical and Italian influences are most clear. The head of Niccolo da Uzzano done after Leonardo shows unusual restraint and severity. The expression is matched by later drawings of two Roman busts but these are done with a more decorative and expressionistic use of pen and ink. Problems of foreshortening and uncharacteristic inhibition in proportion reflect youthful weakness in one or two drawings, but we have in the study for the figure of Christ, "Raising of the Cross" already a drawing of exceptional merit. All parts of the body add to the general momentum. There is power and at the same time sensitivity and attention to detail. The study of the Apostles' heads points to the relaxation of early Classical severity, which is replaced by the softness and warmth that are the marks of his most personal and finest drawings.

Rubens' paintings show a grandness of conception that reminds me of Michelangelo. The larger than life figures of the Renaissance master are, however, classical in their dignity and spirituality. In contrast, Rubens' figures are treated romantically. They are overly real and sensual. Passions are magnified rather than reason or the inner restraint which tighten the faces and figures of Michelangelo. Certain fine oil sketches like *uos Ego reveal the characteristics of the Baroque style which Rubens created almost singlehandedly. Classical clarity is replaced by endless movement, and color is handled in a broad, and, at times, impressionistic, manner. In other canvases the wave of line surges across and into the innermost depths of the pictures. In the complexities of foreshortening, irregular perspective and brilliant lighting, Rubens developed an artist's art. His overall effect is turbulent grandeur. Emotion flows beyond the restraint of garments and beyond the confines of pictures space. But almost always the rich detail is welded together by masterful organization.

In its careful selection the Museum exhibit doesn't overawe the viewer and, at the same time, it provides new points of view from which to re-evaluate a great master.