Peter Paul Rubens

Rubens paintings offer some of the best Flemish art from the 17th century and Peter Paul Rubens established a supreme reputation in several countries across Europe.

Rubens himself was proficient in several different types of art genres, including portraits, altarpieces, landscapes plus mythological depictions. This website covers the work of Rubens in full, with images of his best paintings and information on the long life and career of this great painter. The majority of commissioned paintings that Rubens received across his later career, once his reputation had been firmly established, were history based works which allowed him the opportunity to really push his skills to the limit with huge areas open to him within key institutions, such as Churches. In most cases his sketches were not commissioned and merely served as preparatory works for later oil paintings.

In some cases his most detailed oil paintings would require several drawings covered different parts of a painting prior to commencing. Where his work was to be completed in a key location he would need to plan it carefully first. Rubens' Massacre of the Innocents is the most famous of all his paintings because of it's involvement in an extraordinary purchase with placed it's price in the multi-million pound bracket, having been purchased by a wealthy Canadian family. It is currently the record price for any original painting by the old masters and this is in part due to the fact that their paintings rarely come up for sale, as most are now owned by major international art galleries and museums across Europe and North America.

The art work itself is also extremely impressive and this added to the excitement of it's sale. Whilst Massacre of the Innocents retains it's status as his most significant art work in terms of modern day news, there are many others which fans of Rubens also appreciate just as much, if not more. Reproductions of original Rubens paintings are very common currently and his reputation has remained strong ever since his career passed by, many centuries ago. In most cases his fans choose either framed art prints or handmade oil painting reproductions though in some cases they may instead go for posters or stretched canvases instead, normally depending on the age of the consumer and the style of their home.

Hippopotamus Hunt

Hippopotamus Hunt. Peter Paul Rubens left his mark on the art world in several ways, not just simply through his own paintings. Many of those who served under him as students became respected artists in their own right, and one example of this was Anthony Van Dyck though there were several other apprentices of note too. Most whom trained under him became part of the Dutch Golden Age which helped to put the Netherlands into the top bracket of European art over several generations with established art schools within the country helping to continue it's progress from one period to the next.

All of the links within this website offer you the opportunity to buy your own copies of original Rubens paintings from Art.com, who are the market leader in online prints and posters. We have used Art.com ourselves on several occasions and have been very happy with the Rubens prints which they have supplied to us, so are more than happy to recommend them here. Each image in this website is accompanied by links to the specific painting in their online store, so you don't need to crawl through the Rubens gallery if you already know which is your favourite Rubens painting.

Bacchus

Bacchus. Peter Paul Rubens is known to have looked to all parts of European art in his early days for inspiration and eventually took on the styles and ideas of several different artists into his own as well as adding his personal ideas that ensured his finished paintings were original and inspiring. Rubens is known most of all to have been influenced by Michelangelo, Titian, Caravaggio and Pieter Bruegel the Elder, to name just the most significant names. In return, his career helped to shape the careers of Antoine Watteau and Eugène Delacroix who followed after him.

Rubens underwent years of training as a child but found the best way to understand skills of previous masters was to replicate their works himself, such as with woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger plus some engravings, as Rubens never stuck solely to just traditional canvas paintings. In order to develop his ideas Rubens also travelled around Europe in search of the latest inspirations, and at the time most of them could be found in Italy. Here he could learn about the careers of Italian masters like Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto who were all highly significant at that time, as they are now. Besides Watteau and Delacroix, the work of Rubens also influenced many other famous artists such as Gustave Courbet, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, John Constable, Theodore Gericault and Rosa Bonheur.

Triumph of Faith

Triumph of Faith. During the period of Rubens, the North European artists were starting to establish a strong reputation and one of the key contributors to this was Peter Paul Rubens who was inspired by the more established Italian arts scene and felt that those of the Netherlands and Germany, as they are now, could catch up eventually. Rubens was quite correct in this, with the Northern Renaissance eventually achieving great success which is still highly regarded today, with the Dutch Golden Age being amongst their most significant art movements. Rembrandt van Rijn was another significant contributor to this movement.

Belgian Rubens eventually passed away in 1640 and had by then established an important career which was to last up to the present day as well as leading to his own paintings being amongst the most sought after works from this region that became highly productive with several key artists across the border in Netherlands joining him around this time. Whilst the Dutch Golden Age continues to make most headlines, the Baroque paintings of Belgian Rubens are equally as significant and talented.

List of Famous Peter Paul Rubens Paintings

Please see below for a summarised list of the best Peter Paul Rubens paintings that are featured throughout this website.

• Hippopotamus Hunt
• The Massacre of the Innocents
• Venus at the Mirror
• The Chateau de Steen with Hunter
• Christ on the Cross
• Garden of Love
• Bacchus
• Adoration of the Shepherds
• Crucified Christ
• Judgment of Paris
• The Resurrection of Christ
• The Three Crosses
• Lamentation of Christ
• Landscape with the Ruins of Mount Palatine
• Annunciation
• Landscape with a Rainbow
• Duke of Lerma
• Frigida
• The Martyrdom of St Stephen
• The Deposition
• Assumption of the Virgin
• Descent from the Cross
• Cardinal Infante
• Fall of the Rebel Angels