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xiviii HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ART
Italy is unhappily no longer in the possession of his native land,
but rests in the Belvedere collection at Vienna. The central portion
represents St. Ildephons receiving a rich chasuble from the Virgin;
on the wings are portraits of the donors, and on the outside the
Rest on the Flight into Egypt, or the Virgin under the apple-tree.
The painter is here seen at the apex of his artistic excellence, and
never subsequently produced so perfect a work in so lofty a style.
So long as Italian models were fresh in his mind his imagination
and his sense of form were chastened and refined, but at a later
period they were not unfrequently somewhat too exuberant. Of
similar beauty is the Doubting Thomas in the Museum at Antwerp,
with the two accompanying portraits of Burgomaster Rockox and
his wife. The celebrated Descent from the Cross in the Cathedral
and the Crucifixion in the Museum (‘Le Coup de Lance’) are also
of the highest value as undoubtedly works of the artist’s own hand.
In his later large ecclesiastical paintings Rubens availed him-
self to a large extent of the assistance of his pupils ; so that a less
exalted idea of the master than he deserves may be derived from
the study of these pictures. Another circumstance may help to lead
the traveller in the Netherlands to a similar conclusion. Owing to
the wide-spread renown of the artist, his works did not all remain at
home, but found their way, even in his lifetime, far and wide.
and, Madrid, Paris, Munich, Vienna, and St. Petersburgh con-
tain, in their respective galleries, many of Rubens’ choicest works.
The Antwerp Museum, however, preserves a whole series of valuable
pictures by the master, thus affording an opportunity of studying
him on the spot where he achieved greatness.
Though, however, it may not be possible to find unalloyed
satisfaction in separate works of the master, no one can deny that
Rubens is a figure of great historical importance. This is owing to
the fidelity, with which he has adhered to the traditions of the
national art, to the power, with which he has harmonised these
traditions with an altered condition of and life, and to the uni-
versality which rendered him capable of working in every depart-
ment and of making the age subservient to his purpos He is
master of the whole range of artistic material. To the greatest fer-
tility in the domains of ecclesiastical art he adds an intelligent and
enthusiastic appreciation of the ancient gods and heroes He looks
upon these latter more with the eye of a V irgil than ofa Homer, and
often depicts them in the spirit of an orator rather than in that of
a poet. He shows that he has most affinity for the fleshy figures
of the Bacchic myths, and paints them with a freshness and energy
possessed by none of his contemporaries. His brush is as much at
home in important historical compositions as in the richly-coloured
allegories, by which his age tried to make up to itself for the want
of genuine poetic sensibility. He paints alike portraits and land-
scapes, the battles of men and the fighting of brutes, the gallant |