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Art History’s Heroic Peter Paul Rubens — Celestial Interlude pg228–229
Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic
During the 17th century Peter Paul Rubens lived a magnificent life. He received huge art commissions all over Europe. He gained wealth, prestige and knighthoods from two countries.
But that’s just the smaller part of his large life. What made Rubens heroic was his work as a diplomat, which he considered to be his most important contribution. Because he spoke six languages and traveled to royal courts all over Europe to arrange commissions, he was able to carry messages, settle disputes and avert wars. Rubens was a humanist, a peacemaker and an artist on a monumental scale. That he was sitting here in a celestial chalet sipping chocolate, wiping marshmallow off his mustache, and willing to pitch in with a small art project was entirely due to a long association with his friend Gamdi. — From Chapter 12
Another theory I came up with from observing odd phenomena over time was an idea that the energy of goodwill is indelibly infused in an artist’s work. It emanates off the surface of a painting even after hundreds of years.
The baroque style of Peter Paul Rubens ceased to be fashionable long ago, but the uplifting energy of his work is still as appealing as Van…
