Madrid,
What is surely one of the most educational exhibitions at the Prado Museum, conceived as another form of mediation alongside its activities, can be visited starting tomorrow in one of the rooms of its permanent collection, 16B: “In Rubens’ workshop ”, curated by Alejandro Vergara, head of Conservation of the Area of Flemish Painting and Northern Schools, wants to provide a general public with the intellectual and technical keys that underlie the production of this painter, one of the most prolific of his time (with 1,500 works, a hundred of them preserved in the Madrid art gallery), and also offer you fundamental notes on the historical, cultural and economic context in which his career developed.
As is known, Siegen’s ability to compose was enormous. Along with the paintings he made by himself or with little collaboration, there were numerous those in which he limited himself to drawing the composition, indicating the colors and giving final touches, entrusting their execution to assistants: thanks, precisely, to his fertility, he was able maintain an active workshop with disciples specialized in landscapes, animals, fruits or flowers. Each one was in charge of the part of their competence on the canvas; Furthermore, these compositions were carried out in layers: some painters could be succeeded by others when applying them, in different phases and each one determining the work of the rest. Some would also prepare brushes, colors and supports.
That workshop would be the school in which very relevant artists of subsequent generations were trained and the means by which Rubens exerted a decisive influence on posterity. Furthermore, it allowed him to cover the most diverse themes: religion, mythology, history, secular matters… sometimes in large series of canvases of notable proportions. Let us refer, therefore, to the notion of authorship, speaking of the creator of The three graces It is a thorny question, subject to many casuistic variations, even though all the pieces that left his workshop did so under the Rubens brand; Already during his lifetime, there are written testimonies that the artist responded to a client that, if he had told him that he wanted a better quality painting, he would have given him an original, but it would have cost twice as much.
The exhibition will be a bit of a surprise for visitors to the Prado as it is located in a room adjacent to the Central Gallery, whose entrance has been highlighted with a rubensiana red curtain, and also by the recreation of his workshop in the central area of the room, a montage inspired by information extracted from the texts that collects certain features of the working methods of the painters of the moment and the prestige that this artist wanted to project. : He collected ancient sculpture, which is why some pieces from the Prado collections have been arranged here; In his desire to show himself as a great lord, he would wear a hat and a sword (the honor of carrying it was granted to him by Isabel Clara Eugenia); and I would use tientos, here simulated.
Successful authors like Rubens made their careers in large workshops (it is possible that up to twenty-five people worked in his), where material sellers and painters specialized in certain subjects would also come when they were required; Masterpieces could emerge from there in relatively high numbers, even though pieces of higher and lower quality and greater and lower cost were produced. This is, therefore, an exhibition intended for every fan to train his or her gaze in the consideration of what is great art and of art that, offering quality, cannot reach that category; of the original creation (with its doubts along the way) and the virtuous copy (on already known ground); The texts clearly appeal to this broad audience while the academic contributions have been collected in the catalogue, which also includes an interview with Jacobo Alcalde Gilbert, an artist who has replicated the process in a six-minute video that we can see in the room. of creation of Mercury and Argos paying attention to Rubens’ methods – proving that a work of these characteristics could be carried out in about sixty days.
To help us understand this creative process in stages, two of the works gathered in this assembly are unfinished pieces: they are the portraits of Maria de Medici (around 1622) and Hélène Fourment with her children (around 1636), the first belonging to the Prado and the second to the Louvre. Progress in the work was slow: drawing was applied on the primer; on this, the sketch; and on the latter, the color in layers of greater or lesser transparency. Master and followers could alternate, although it is not evident that they did so in the specific case of these paintings: it is possible that the one of the queen of France was left unfinished as it constituted a model suitable for replicas, while the second is already in a very advanced phase.
Encouraging us to sharpen our eyes, the Prado proposes us to differentiate which of two images dedicated to another Gallic queen, Anne of Austria, originally corresponds to Rubens, who made it in Paris in 1622, and which was a copy of that by his workshop, which would be used in these replicas, especially in the case of portraits of illustrious people. Both offer excellent execution, so to gather clues we will have to look for characteristics of the German language and a certain spontaneity: that of someone who adopts certain formulas while working; in imitation such decisions are not necessary.
A QR code will give us the answer and abundant information, but we can point out that the lighting of the collar and the contrast of the white lace with bold black brushstrokes reveal the Prado original compared to the workshop piece from a private Viennese collection; also the textures and finishes, less polished in the first composition.
Another type of collaboration, as we pointed out, was the demand for specialists, such as Frans Snyders, an expert in the creation of live or dead animals who worked with him in Philopomenes discovered. At first, Rubens devised the complete scene in a small sketch, which the Louvre treasures and which Snyders took as a guide to deal with his part in the lower area of the composition; that is, from dead animals, vegetables and fruits on and under the table. Of his work, Pedro Pablo only saw fit to touch up the white cloth around the wild boar’s open mouth, where we will recognize his dynamic brushstrokes.
An example of an image with a Rubens sketch and development by the workshop, with touches from that one, is the wonderful one. The education of Achilles; both compositions, in fact, preparatory for a tapestry included in a series on the life of the Greek hero. The essay, small and preserved in the Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, offers the artist’s usual lively brushstrokes and spontaneity, as well as a transparency between layers that generates tonal unity and a visible black line drawing.
It would be taken to a larger size by an assistant to later execute the cardboard to be sent to the weavers: in that larger oil painting, in the Prado, the folds do not suggest the initial vividness, their weight and fall are different, and the nature is due to Rubens. death of the lower area and some corrections to the centaur and the clouds around him. Together with both pieces we will see The victory of Truth over Heresya handwritten work of the latter, to compare the spontaneity in his architecture with respect to the finished work of Achilles.
The set is completed by a workshop painting with a figure added by the master and a large-format composition by him and his assistants. The first is The death of the consul Deciusalso preparatory for a tapestry: Rubens must have made previous sketches, although we do not know them, and there are several features that are not compatible with the German types, such as the paleness of some faces or the poor fluidity between mane and neck, even though the treatment of the figures is convincing. His agility is appreciated in Victory. The second is Achilles discovered by Odysseus and Diomedes (around 1617-1618); It is likely that, in this case, Rubens made a sketch to follow, which his collaborators would transfer to the canvas, creating a sketch, that they would also add colors, and that the German would add two male figures to the set and adjust elements.
The Prado offers us the opportunity, in this small and revealing exhibition, to discover the Rubens genius and the Rubens quasi-producer of art on a massive scale, the artist ambitious in pictorial achievement and profit; to the great figure who was never alone.
“Rubens’ workshop”
NATIONAL PRADO MUSEUM
Paseo del Prado, s/n
Madrid
From October 15, 2024 to February 16, 2025
