The red sign outside the Toledo Museum of Art reads “The Age of Rubens … An Extraordinary Exhibition.” And that is so.
This is a show of virtuosity, of sublime painting and superb art by Peter Paul Rubens, his collaborators and contemporaries in 17th-Century Flanders (modern Belgium). It is the most important art exhibit in this area this year.
The 27 Rubens paintings include a range of major works rarely, if ever, seen together. Most don’t travel: “The Garden of Love,” that glorious love poem Rubens painted at age 53 to his new 16-year-old wife, has never before left the Prado in Spain for an American museum show. Seeing it with its contemporary, “The Crowning of Saint Catherine,” provides a doubly delectable opportunity to study what makes Rubens great.
Add the other 91 paintings-including: figures and portraits by Anthony Van Dyck; still lifes by Jan Davidsz de Heem so real they look as though you can squish the grapes; the comedic, allegorical tavern scenes by Jacob Jordaens; and less-famous works such as the haunting, light-filled self-portrait by Michael Sweerts-and you have a full course in the wonders of 17th-Century Flemish art. Which itself is an esteemed chapter in the history of European art.
While this is the first American exhibition to survey Flemish Baroque painting, it is also important because it does away with some stereotypes. No. 1 among them is the belief that any Rubens exhibit should be loaded with his luscious paintings of those mythical nude women who make cellulite attractive and for whom the word Rubenesque was coined.
Another conventional approach would have been to lard the show with Rubens’ huge altar paintings of Catholic martyrs done as counterreformation propaganda. Certainly these are major projects from Rubens’ studio. He would sketch the work out, do many of the figures and then assistants would fill in the rest.
These altars almost never travel. But the three major religious paintings in the show are pure Rubens masterpieces: The small, wrenching image of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene grieving over the dead Christ; the very human painting of the Holy Family; and the exquisite, beautiful “Saint Catherine” owned by the Toledo Museum. Some authorities deem “Saint Catherine” the greatest Rubens in this country.
The careful selection of paintings by organizing curator Peter Sutton, of the Boston Museum of Art, reveals the broad reaches of Rubens’ genius. And that is the critical point.
Rubens moves easily from the tender and personal to the heroic and grand, from the quick, brilliant sketch to the huge, meticulously finished painting. His ability to create life, to catch man and nature in action, and to naturally add symbolic meaning is the crux of his genius. He used a dynamic energy, a pervasive rhythm, almost a life force to bind his images. It is visible in those chubby cupids in the “Garden of Love” flying around to get lovers together.
The exhibit opens with two galleries of Rubens’ early paintings, done while he was in Italy studying the old masters from 1600-1608 and shortly after. It also includes landscapes by Rubens’ assistants.
The next space is full of sketches in oil by Rubens and Van Dyck. Without all the finish one can see Rubens’ touch-how he works out the shape of a muscular horse flying in the sky, or organizes the structure of an elaborate painting for a ceiling. This is a treat.
Succeeding galleries house portraits, then genre or everyday scenes, animal paintings, landscapes and floral still lifes. The last two spaces are a mixture of mythological, religious, historic and still-life paintings done later. Placement is determined primarily by size and by the desire to facilitate comparisons. While the mix can be a bit confusing after the other spaces are kept to themes, the art itself in these galleries is strong.
The last painting in the show, David Teniers the Younger’s “Archduke Leopold Wilhelm Visiting His Gallery in Brussels,” was the inspiration for another Toledo exhibit. The picture shows the archduke looking at paintings he owned that are hung tightly together from floor to ceiling in his palace.
Toledo has done the same with 273 of its great European paintings, sculptures and decorative artworks from the 14th through 19th Centuries, the art that was in the galleries where the Rubens show now is presented. The exhibit “Toledo Treasures,” in two large spaces, is eye-popping, a must-see. It makes you realize how rich and great the Toledo collection is.
RUBENS SHOWS IN TOLEDO AND DETROIT
“The Age of Rubens” is open through April 24 at the Toledo Museum of Art, Monroe at Collingwood Avenues. The exhibit is open from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tues.-Thurs.; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Fri.; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat.-Sun. Admission is by timed ticket available at the museum or by calling 419-243-7000 or 800-374-0667. For more information on tours and lectures, call the museum at 419-255-8000.
The “Toledo Treasures” exhibit continues through May 1. There is no admission, and it is open during museum hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tues.-Thurs.; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Fri.; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat.-Sun.
A complimentary exhibit, “Prints and Drawings in the Age of Rubens” (to May 22) at the Detroit Institute of Arts, 5200 Woodward Ave., provides an in-depth view of the graphic works of Rubens and his contemporaries (open 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wed.-Fri., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat.-Sun., closed Mon.-Tues.; admission $4 adults, $1 students and children; 313-833-7900).
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The Toledo Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts are accessible to wheelchairs, and both offer wheelchairs for disabled visiting patrons.
