Rubensesque Size Exhibit at Ringling Museum

Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens was quite the machine in his day.

The works of the painter, who are on display starting today at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, are so varied and vast, the museum’s Rubens expert Dr. Virginia Brilliant says it’s OK if you don’t take it all in on one day.

“This has a lot to offer and one shouldn’t be obliged to look at everything in one visit,” Brilliant said laughing. “My idea would be come in here, look at a few things and go have an ice cream at the Banyan Café and then come back some other time.

Here are just some of Rubens’ themes you can explore:

• Iconography

• Prints

• Use of copyright

• Portraits

• Rubenesque works (the term coined after Rubens’ love of painting nude, full-figure ladies)

• Engravings, etchings and woodcuts

The Rubens Gallery in the Ulla R. and Arthur F. Searing Wing is interspersed with works from the Ringling family's own collection, to which John Ringling was a dedicated Rubens collector, and pieces on loan from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp.

The collection is so important to the art world, Gov. Rick Scott stopped by the museum Thursday night for a reception and welcoming the Antwerp officials.

“The Rubens are unbelievably beautiful pieces of art. They’re so vibrant," Scott said. "It's great to have a partnership with Antwerp."

The exhibit was 11 years in the making when Antwerp Vice Mayor for Culture and Tourism Philip Heylen visited family staying in Sarasota and decided to see the Ringling Museum after being sick of the beach, he joked.

“I come in there and all of a sudden I’m overwhelmed by what I see — the Series of the Eucharist,” Heylen said. “I fell madly in love with this museum.”

The actual work began six years ago, shortly after Heylen became vice mayor in Antwerp and starting forging a partnership with the museum and worked with officials there who also traveled to Ringling Thursday, Dr. Paul Huvenne, administrator-general of the Royal Museum of  Fine Arts, Antwerp and Bruno Verbergt, the executive director of Antwerp’s culture, sports and youth.

For Antwerp, Rubens is still “the most important ambassador” according to Heylen.

“He put Antwerp on the international level of the city of Baroque to the north,” he added.

Brilliant felt that this was the museum’s one chance to go big displaying the museum’s own Rubens works in a significant way.

“This was the only time we were ever going to include them, show them, talk about them in a meaningful way,” she said. “I thought better to go big than go home.”

“It’s Rubenesque,” chimed in Maureen Zaremba, curator of education at the museum.

America is still relatively new to appreciate Flemish Baroque, Huvenne said.

“There was a long tradition of collecting Dutch art, but Flemish art really had a late start in the U.S. collection with one big exception — Sarasota,” he said. “When the Ringlings bought those magnificent paintings.”

Interestingly enough, Ringling’s advisors didn’t understand why John Ringling wanted to buy the pieces, but Ringling insisted and said he would build a special room to display the large Triumph of the Eucharist series, according to Brilliant’s book, Triumph & Taste: Peter Paul Rubens At The Ringling Museum of Art.

Rubens the Entrepreneur

Part of what makes the exhibit special is the prints displayed. Rubens saw the opportunity to make money by offering prints of his works he created because more people could have a piece of art that they normally couldn’t see because it was made for some royals or placed in a covenant.

“Print making was like television of the 16^th and 17^th centuries,” Huvenne said.

And what better place to do it than Antwerp, which was like the Hollywood for the Spanish crown of the 16^th and 17^th centuries, Huvenne said, where large, high-quality arts projects would be completed.

Instead of spending his own time creating each one, Rubens would hire people to recreate the works, yet, he would still labor over those workers, editing and proofing the prints until perfected. And not all were perfect.

One of the pieces in the collection is a print proof and you can see redish ink from Rubens correcting the print telling the print maker to add more shadows.

He also created his own copyright system. Instead of signing his name, he would use a formula of copyrighted with privileges from the Spanish Crown, then the Belgium ruler at the time.

Roughly translated, one print says: “With privileges, of the Most Christian Kingdom, the Prince of Belgium, and the Northern Netherlands”

“After the arch duke died, the formula changes a little bit but it always starts with cum privilegia, or with privileges,” Brilliant said. If it doesn’t have that, it’s not a supervised print, she added.

Brilliant said it’s believed that Rubens was the only artist at that time to create such a copyright system.

And all that is just a tiny part of the vast Rubens Galleries at Ringling Museum.

Time for some ice cream, Dr. Brilliant?

The Rubens Galleries' Peter Paul Rubens: Impressions of a Master exhibit will be on display through June 3. General admission to the museum is $25, $20 for seniors 65 and up, $5 for children 6-17 and college students with valid student ID.

For complete list of activities, read Ringling To Host Several Rubens Events Highlighting Galleries