Lives of Rubens

A new title in the successful Lives of the Artists series, which offers illuminating, and often intimate, accounts of iconic artists as viewed by their contemporaries.

The enormous talent, range, and intellect of Flemish Baroque artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) had an immediate impact on his contemporaries and changed international perceptions about painting and painters. Lives of Rubens assembles three early biographies that illuminate this impact: rival artist Giovanni Baglione writes about Rubens's works for the churches of Rome; Joachim von Sandrart demonstrates the highly favorable contemporary public opinion of Rubens; and painter and critic Roger de Piles staunchly defends Rubens's work in response to criticism by the French Academy.

About the Author: Giovanni Baglione (1566-1643) was an Italian painter and art historian. Although many of his works can be found in Roman churches and European collections, he is perhaps best known for his contentious relationship with Caravaggio, which resulted in Baglione suing Caravaggio and other artists in his circle for libel over a claim that Baglione had plagiarized Caravaggio's style. Baglione's book The Lives of Painters, Sculptors, Architects and Engravers active from 1772-1642 (Le Vite de'pittori, sculturi, architette ed intalgliatori...) published in Rome in 1642, includes the biographies of over two hundred artists and is still considered an important historical source for information about artists living in Rome during Baglione's lifetime.

Joachim von Sandrart (1606-1688) was a German Baroque art historian and painter active in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age. He was known as an accomplished painter of genre scenes and became a famous portraitist. However, he is best known as an author of books on art, especially for his historical work, Teutsche Academie, published between 1675 and 1680, which is a compilation of short biographies of artists that was inspired by Karel van Mander's similar Schilder-boeck. Both Sandrart and van Mander based their Italian sections on the work of Giorgio Vasari.

Roger de Piles (1635-1709) was a French painter, engraver, art critic, and diplomat. He was secretary to the French ambassador to Venice and while there started a famous collection of prints, drawings, and paintings by Giorgione, Correggio, Rembrandt, Rubens, and others. While imprisoned in the Hague for carrying a false passport, he wrote L'Abrégé de la vie des peintres avec un traité du peintre parfait (Summary of the Lives of Painters, with a treatise on perfect painting) published in 1699. In his Dialogue sur le coloris, he initiated his famous defense of Rubens in a discussion of the relative merits of drawing and color. In his last published work, Cours de peinture par principes avec un balance de peintres (1708) Piles listed fifty-six painters and graded each on composition, drawing, color, and expression. He gave Raphael the highest marks on drawing, and Rubens the best score on use of color. Bellini, Giorgione and Caravaggio received poor scores on everything but color.