422 RUB 
her dispatched on a political mission to the court of Madrid, 
where he arrived in 1628, and was most graciously received 
by Philip IV. He acquitted himself in his novel capacity 
to the satisfaction of that monarch, and his minister, the 
duke de Olivares, by both of whom he was highly esteemed; 
and while his talents as a diplomatist met with the success 
they merited, those of the painter were not neglected. 
The duke de Olivares had just completed the foundation 
of a convent of Carmelites at the small town of Loeches, 
near Madrid, and the king, as a mark of his favour to the 
minister, commissioned Rubens to paint four pictures for 
their church, which he executed in his grandest style, and 
the richest glow of his colouring. The first is an alle¬ 
gorical design of the triumph of the new Law, which he 
has personified by a figure of Religion, seated on a superb 
triumphal car, drawn by four angels, with others bear¬ 
ing the cross, with characteristic symbols; four figures, 
expressive of Infidelity or Ignorance, over which Religion 
is supposed to triumph, follow the car like slaves or cap¬ 
tives bound in chains. The group is crowned with beau¬ 
tiful cherubims, that hover in the air with chaplets in their 
hands, disposed with singular art and the most charming effect. 
The companion picture represents the interview of Abra¬ 
ham and Melchisedech, who offers him bread and the tenth 
of his spoils. The other two pictures, of equal excellence 
with the above, represent the four doctors of the church, 
and the four evangelists, with their distinctive emblems: 
they are all of very large dimensions, and in composition 
and expression are not excelled by any of his works. He 
also painted eight grand pictures for the great saloon of 
the palace at Madrid, which are regarded among the most 
brilliant of his productions. Their subjects were the Rape 
of the Sabines; the Battle between the Romans and Sabines; 
the Bath of Diana, Perseus, and Andromeda; the Rape 
of Helen; the Judgment of Paris, Juno, Minerva, and 
Venus; and the Triumph of Bacchus. He also painted a 
large portrait of the king on horseback, with other figures; 
and a picture of the Martyrdom of the Apostle St. Andrew, 
which was in the church dedicated to that saint. For these 
extraordinary productions he was richly rewarded, received 
the honour of knighthood, and was presented with the 
golden key as gentleman of the chamber to the king. In 
1629 he returned to Flanders, and thus, in the short space 
of little more than nine months, he designed and executed 
so extensive a series of pictures; a labour which, to any 
other artist not possessed of his extraordinary powers, must 
have required the exertion of many years. When he had 
rendered the account of his mission to the Infanta, she dis¬ 
patched him to England, to sound the disposition of the 
government on the subject of a peace. There for a time 
he concealed the powers granted to him to negociate upon 
the subject. Charles, in the interim, honoured this great 
painter with his notice, and commissioned him to paint the 
ceiling of the banqueting-house at Whitehall, where he has 
represented the apotheosis of king James I. 
During one of the frequent visits with which Charles 
honoured Rubens, whilst he was engaged in this great work, 
the latter, with infinite address, took a favourable oppor¬ 
tunity of touching on the subject of peace with Spain; 
and finding that the monarch was no ways averse to it, at 
length produced the credentials with which he was fur¬ 
nished. The king appointed some members of the council 
to negociate with him; and the business was speedily 
brought to a conclusion. Charles, delighted both with 
the man and the artist, munificently rewarded Rubens, and 
on the 21st of February, 1630, conferred upon him the 
honour of knighthood. Soon afterwards, the important 
object of his mission being happily effected, he returned to 
the Netherlands, where he was received with all the honours 
and distinctions due to exalted merit. 
Rubens continued to enjoy his well-earned fame and 
honours, with uninterrupted success, till he arrived at his 
58th year, when he was attacked with strong fits of gout, 
which debilitated his frame, and unfitted him for great ex¬ 
ertions: he abandoned, therefore, all larger works, and 
E N S. 
confined himself to easel painting. Yet he continued to 
exercise his art until the year 1640, when he died, at the 
age of 63. He was buried, with extraordinary pomp, in 
the church of St. James at Antwerp, under the altar of 
his private chapel, which he had previously decorated with 
a very fine picture. A monument was erected to him by 
his wife and children, with an epitaph in Latin, eulogizing- 
his talents and virtues, and displaying their success. It 
is difficult to say which branch of the art most successfully 
employed the talents of Rubens. In history, portraiture, 
animals, landscape, or still life,his brilliancy of imagination, 
and wonderful skill in execution, are equally apparent; 
but his works abound with defects as well as beauties, and are 
liable, by their daring eccentricities, to provoke much criticism. 
But they have, nevertheless, that peculiar property, always the 
companion of true genius, that which seizes on the spectator, 
commands attention, and enforces admiration, in spite of all 
their faults. His productions seem to have flowed from his 
pencil with more than freedom—with prodigality: his mind 
appears to have been inexhaustible; his hand never wearied: 
the exuberant fertility of his imagination was, therefore, 
always accompanied by a correspondent spirit in the execution 
of his work. 
“ Led by some rule, which guides but not constrains. 
He finished more through happiness than pains.” 
No man ever more completely laid the reins on the neck 
of his inclinations; no man ever more fearlessly abandoned 
himself to his own sensations, and depending on them, dared 
to attempt extraordinary things, than Rubens. To this,, 
in a great measure, must be attributed that perfect ori¬ 
ginality of manner, by which the limits of the art may be 
said to have been extended. Endowed with a full com¬ 
prehension of his own character, he waited not a moment 
for the acquisition of what he perhaps deemed incompatible 
excellence: his theory once formed, he seldom looked 
abroad for assistance; there is consequently in his works 
very little that appears to be taken from other masters, and if 
he has occasionally stolen any thing, he has so well digested 
and adapted it to the rest of his composition, that the 
theft is not discoverable. But though it must be allowed 
that he possessed, in many respects, the true art of imitation, 
though he looked at nature with a painter’s eye, and saw 
at once the characteristic feature by which every object is 
distinguished, and rendered it on canvass with a vivacity of 
touch truly astonishing; though his powers of grouping and 
combining his objects into a whole, and forming his masses 
of light and shadow and colour have never been equalled ; 
and though the general animation and energy of his at¬ 
titudes, and the flowing liberty of his outline, all contri¬ 
bute to arrest the attention, and inspire a portion of that 
enthusiasm by which the painter was absorbed and carried 
away; yet the spectator will at last awake from his trance, 
his eyes will cease to be dazzled, and then he will not fail 
to lament, that such extraordinary powers were so often 
misapplied, if not entirely cast away : he will enquire, why 
Rubens was content to waste so many requisites to the 
perfection of the art ? why he paid no greater attention to 
elegance and correctness of form, to grace, to beauty, dig¬ 
nity and propriety of character ? 
The redemption of what he wanted, is found in the uni¬ 
versality of his power as an executive painter. In the 
smallest sketch, the lightness and transparency of his touch 
and colour, are no less remarkable than the sweeping rapidity 
and force of his brush in his largest works: and in all kinds 
of subjects, he equally keeps up his wonted superiority. 
His animals, particularly his lions and horses, are so ad¬ 
mirable, that it may be said they were never properly, at 
least poetically, painted, but by him; his portraits rank with 
the best works of those painters who have made that branch 
of art their sole study; and his landscapes remind us of the 
lustre of Claude Lorraine and the grandeur of Titian. In 
the latter class of his works, the picturesque forms of his. 
rocks and trees, the deep tones in his shady glades and glooms, 
the watery sunshine, the dewy verdure, the airiness and 
facility 
