Peter Paul Rubens Allegory Of The Outbreak Of War

Gardner’s Art through the Ages defines baroque as a blanket term defining the art that was developed between the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (Kleiner, pg 608). Though the term, baroque, as a generic term does not fully suit the era in which it encompasses; this era includes a wide variety of skills, media, and subjects that each piece includes. Peter Paul Rubens was a well-educated, high-end artist that gained continuous attention from royal families. Rubens became court painter and was sought be various prestigious families during his career; the dukes of Mantua, friend of the king of spain as well as his advisor, Charles I of England and Marie de’ Medici, the queen of France, were all included amongst this group of wealth and prestige. Ruben’s artwork depicts great emotion and passion, detail and movement, drama and action; the attention to detail and display of tension in each individual surpass just about any other artist’s interpretations prior to Peter Paul Rubens. Ruben showed special attention to the human figure, more specifically to the natural form of women. This passion for the natural depiction of women has adopted the term
rubenesque for his display of a woman’s curves and natural form. Each of Ruben’s pieces of art display chaos and energy with Italian inspiration.
In his piece Allegory of the Outbreak of War, in which he completed in 1638 show the form of the human body that he grew so famous for, along with the movement and emotion that fills his art with each stroke. We see a piece that was created during the Thirty Years War and the lack of control that each person has for those around them succumbing to the plague that sough wrath on every person in its path. We see the fight that is had between those who are not suffering and those who are passing to the other side, losing the battle to the plague that took so many. Ruben does an impeccable job of capturing the emotion that must have reined true during the time-- the fight, the pain, and the sorrow that each person
experienced. Rembrandt van Rijn was a conservative Dutch painter during the Baroque Era, eventually coming to his own in Amsterdam around 1631 (Kleiner, pg 642). Rembrandt sought to capture the true personality and feeling that his subjects possessed at the time. In his piece Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp, in which he completed in 1632, Rembrandt adjust the traditional setting of subjects with a diagonal focus rather than horizontally across (Kleiner, pg 643). Rembrandt demonstrates his ability to capture personality and though in his subjects through their facial expressions and body language. We see students leaning in passionately to capture every word and lesson being taught by Dr. Tulp as he dissects a deceased person on a medical table through his display of psychological depth in his art—capturing the deeper feeling that each subject possesses (Kleiner, pg 643). We see men in the front of the corpse leaning in for more information and curiosity as to what the physician is saying; and the contrasting modesty and turning of a few others in the piece, shielding themselves from the image of the corpse that lies in front of them-- perhaps taking in the knowledge, without the physical appearance and display that is being offered. We do see stark differences between Rembrandt and Rubens through the emotion that they are trying to capture in each piece. Rembrandt places focus on the psyche and emotional displays of the subjects, while Rubens relies more on the physical emotion and detail in the movement and body language of each person. Though each artist captures similar emotions in their piece, Ruben’s art, in my opinion, are far more passionate and emotional than Rembrandts—including more details and the ability to unearth far more messages and depictions with each viewing.