To talk about art in Flanders you have to start with Peter Paul Rubens, an indisputable faounder of seventeenth-century Flemish school. With its outstanding dowry and its marked Italic and classical character, it gives a kind of inviolability to the painting of this area. Characterized by the Counter-Reformation and the need to represent the ‘Triumphal Church’, to reinforce the faith threatened by the Protestant Reformation, Baroque art of this period gives us great cycles and imposing sacred altars. With one of these masterpieces begins today’s story: November 12, 1643, when Rubens received a deposit of 300 florins for the realization of the Adoration of the Magi in the Church of St. John in Malines.
The town of Malines became, at the end of the sixteenth century, one of the most representative centers of Christian art. The city maintains this position throughout the seventeenth century and this is reflected in the richness of the treasures housed in the Church of St. John, which – though small – contains many artistic objects such as the famous Rubens Triptych built on the upper altar. Adoration of the Magi is the main painting of the three on the predella; on the left there is the Decollation of St. John the Baptist, while the Martyrdom of St. John the Evangelist is on the right. Rubens’s work for this church does not end here, indeed, he made five more canvases: at the sides of the two shutters, St. John the Baptist in the desert and St. John the Evangelist in the island of Patmos are painted, while under the altar, on the right there was Resurrection of Jesus Christ, in the middle of Christ on the Cross and finally, on the left, the Adoration of the Shepherds. Through the original receipt and account kept in the church’s sacristy, we know that Rubens’s hand took no more than eighteen days to complete the entire work. An astonishing timing given the accuracy and completeness of execution.
The main composition, Adoration of the Magi, represents the moment when the Virgin (whose face is the portrait of Rubens’s first wife, Isabella Brant) shows the child to the Magi, with St. Joseph behind her and the procession of the Magi around the protagonists on the left side of the scene. The work affects with the size, with the color vivacity and great emotional intensity, as well as the classical setting, central in the Rubens’s work. In fact, the stay in Italy, classical art and great masters such as Titian, Tintoretto, Michelangelo, Raffaello, Caravaggio were constant references during his formation, so much that Bernard Berenson called him “an Italian painter”.
This viaticum was a valuable gift for Rubens’s journey, which he then translated to Flemish art, introducing the use of large canvases, to the detriment of the small formats so favorite until then. Thus revolutionized the way of conceiving space in Flemish painting: in every work the event takes place in a space (architectural and not) organized and constructed by the light itself, what Rubens has cleverly caught up in Caravaggio as a revealing element and that, in his paintings, he has chosen as a designer of the scene. It is not lightening, it is matter that acts on both color and action.
With Rubens Baroque was born in the Flemish countries and the use he made of light came to us as a prelude to how it will be conceived by Impressionists. A look so far into the future that made it a central role in the landscape of seventeenth-century art and in the history of contemporary art.
To admire the works we talked about, we invite you to travel through the aisles of Église Saint-Jean de Malines through an amazing and surprising virtual tour.
The detail on the cover is from:
Peter Paul Rubens
Self Portrait
1623
Oil on canvas
85.7 × 62.2 cm
London, Royal Collection