Painter of the Bible
Peter Paul Rubens
Rubens was the great Catholic painter of the Counter-Reformation north.
Their faith
Why Peter Paul Rubens painted Christ
Peter Paul Rubens was a devout Catholic artist whose work played a pivotal role in the Counter-Reformation. Born to Flemish exiles and raised in Antwerp, he was deeply influenced by the Catholic faith that permeated his upbringing. His training in Italy, where he absorbed the grandeur of Renaissance art, only deepened his commitment to creating works that conveyed the beauty and drama of scripture. Rubens's faith was not merely a backdrop; it was the driving force behind his prolific output, as he sought to inspire and uplift viewers through his vibrant depictions of biblical narratives. His dedication to the church is evident in his many altarpieces and commissions for cathedrals, where he transformed sacred spaces into visual celebrations of faith.
Rubens's artistic vision is perhaps best exemplified in his monumental works such as "The Elevation of the Cross" and "The Descent from the Cross," both housed in the Antwerp Cathedral. These pieces showcase his ability to blend dynamic composition with emotional depth, inviting viewers into the profound mysteries of Christ's sacrifice. The theatricality and light-flooded scenes reflect his belief in the power of art to communicate divine truths. Through his paintings, Rubens not only illustrated biblical stories but also engaged the faithful, encouraging them to contemplate the spiritual significance of these events. Even today, his devotion continues to resonate, as viewers are drawn into the beauty of his work and inspired to reflect on their own faith journeys.
Life & work
Rubens was the great Catholic painter of the Counter-Reformation north. Born in Westphalia to Flemish exiles, raised in Antwerp, trained in the Italianate workshops of his city and then in Italy itself between 1600 and 1608, he returned to Antwerp at thirty-one and turned the city's churches back into picture galleries. The Antwerp Cathedral — its Elevation of the Cross (1610–11) and Descent from the Cross (1612–14) triptychs — and the Jesuit Saint Carolus Borromeus Church set the visual program for Counter-Reformation Flanders: dynamic, fleshy, light-flooded, theatrical, unmistakably Catholic.
His workshop was the largest in Europe. He took commissions across the courts of Spain, France, England, and the Italian states; he painted the Marie de' Medici cycle for the Luxembourg Palace in Paris (now in the Louvre), the ceiling of the Banqueting House in Whitehall, the Decius Mus tapestry cartoons, dozens of altarpieces for Antwerp, Brussels, Mechelen, and the Spanish Netherlands. Hundreds of paintings left his shop with his name on them; collaborators completed many. His own hand is unmistakable in the modelling of flesh and the energy of large-scale composition.
He was also a diplomat. Knighted by both Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England, he negotiated peace between Spain and England in 1630. He spoke six languages and corresponded with humanists across Europe. He outlived two wives, married a third when he was fifty-three (Helena Fourment, his model for many late paintings), and ended his life on a country estate outside Antwerp, painting for himself.
His biblical subjects are large in every sense. The Massacre of the Innocents (Alte Pinakothek and J. Paul Getty Museum), the Samson and Delilah (National Gallery, London), the Daniel in the Lions' Den (National Gallery of Art, Washington), the Adoration of the Magi (Prado), the Crucifixion altarpieces and Resurrection panels of Antwerp — these are paintings that ask churches to be cathedrals and cathedrals to be theaters. He died in 1640 and is buried in St. Jacob's Church in Antwerp, in a side chapel he designed.
Notable works in detail
The Raising of the Cross, painted between 1610 and 1611 in oil on panel as a triptych for the high altar of the church of Saint Walburga in Antwerp and now (since the church's demolition in 1817) hanging in Antwerp Cathedral, is the great public statement of Rubens's first Antwerp years after his return from eight years in Italy. The central panel shows nine straining muscular men in the act of hoisting the cross and the body of Christ upright; the diagonal of the cross runs across the entire panel from lower left to upper right, the figures arranged on either side in a complex interlocking knot of bodies, ropes, and tools. The two side wings show the centurion and the soldiers on the left, and the women and the two thieves on the right. The chromatic palette is deeply saturated — the dramatic Caravaggesque chiaroscuro Rubens had absorbed in Rome and Naples between 1600 and 1608 here applied to a heroic Northern altarpiece scale unprecedented in the Low Countries. It was the painting that secured his Antwerp reputation overnight.
The Descent from the Cross, painted between 1612 and 1614 in oil on panel as a triptych for the Confraternity of the Harquebusiers in the Antwerp Cathedral where it still hangs, is the supreme statement of Rubens's mature Antwerp manner and one of the most reproduced single paintings of the entire seventeenth century. The central panel shows the body of Christ being lowered from the cross by nine attendants; the Virgin and Mary Magdalene wait below to receive him, John the Evangelist supports the body from below, and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus lower it from above with a winding sheet held in their teeth. The composition is built on a long diagonal — the white winding sheet and the body of Christ — that runs across the entire panel from the upper right to the lower left. The two side wings show the Visitation on the left and the Presentation in the Temple on the right. The painting was completed in two years for a fee that made Rubens, at age thirty-seven, the wealthiest painter in the Spanish Netherlands.
The Massacre of the Innocents, painted around 1611–1612 in oil on panel and now in the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, depicts the slaughter of the male children of Bethlehem ordered by King Herod after the visit of the Magi as recorded in Matthew 2. Rubens fills the canvas with a roiling chaotic mass of muscular soldiers, screaming mothers clutching their dead infants, and the scattered small bodies of the killed children, set against a dark architectural backdrop. The painting was bought at Sotheby's London in July 2002 for fifty million British pounds — at the time the highest price ever paid at auction for an Old Master painting — by the Canadian newspaper magnate Kenneth Thomson, who immediately donated it to the Art Gallery of Ontario where it remains. The provenance research that led to the rediscovery of the canvas, and the price the painting eventually fetched, made it one of the most-discussed Rubens canvases of the early twenty-first century.
Daniel in the Lions' Den, painted around 1614–1616 in oil on canvas and now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, illustrates the climactic scene of Daniel 6: the prophet, thrown into the den of lions for refusing to worship King Darius's idols, sits unhurt in prayer through the night while the lions surround him. Rubens places Daniel as a solitary white-robed figure on the right side of the composition, his hands folded, his head tilted up toward the upper-right opening of the den; the lions — nine of them, painted with extraordinary specificity from Rubens's own studies of the Spanish Habsburg menagerie at Brussels — fill the rest of the canvas in poses of yawning, pacing, growling, and (in the foreground left) dozing. The painting is the most-celebrated single Rubens treatment of an Old Testament narrative and one of the most-reproduced animal-painting demonstrations of his entire career.
The Resurrection of Christ, painted around 1612 in oil on panel as the central panel of a triptych and now in Antwerp Cathedral, is the principal early Antwerp treatment of the Resurrection by Rubens and a canonical statement of his mature Catholic Counter-Reformation manner. Christ rises from the open tomb in the upper register, his white winding sheet draped from his shoulders, his right hand raised in benediction, while the soldiers below tumble away in shock and terror. The painting was commissioned by the Plantin-Moretus family — the great Antwerp printing dynasty whose Officina Plantiniana was the principal Catholic publishing house in the Spanish Netherlands — as a memorial altarpiece for Jan Moretus, who died in 1610. The triptych remained in continuous use as the Plantin-Moretus family altar in the Cathedral until the early nineteenth century. The chromatic palette of crimson, cream, and gold is among the most saturated of Rubens's early Antwerp paintings.
Bible scenes Peter Paul Rubens painted
Daniel
Matthew
Luke
John
Revelation
Judith
2 Peter
Acts
Romans
1 Kings
Galatians
Genesis
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