First publication in English of three of the most illuminating contemporary assessments of Rubens' spectacular art and career.

A new title in the successful Lives of the Artists series, which offers illuminating, and often intimate, accounts of iconic artists as viewed by their contemporaries. The enormous talent, range, and intellect of Flemish Baroque artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) had an immediate impact on his contemporaries and changed international perceptions about painting and painters. Lives of Rubens assembles three early biographies that illuminate this impact: rival artist Giovanni Baglione writes about Rubens’s works for the churches of Rome; Joachim von Sandrart demonstrates the highly favorable contemporary public opinion of Rubens; and painter and critic Roger de Piles staunchly defends Rubens’s work in response to criticism by the French Academy.

Peter Paul Rubens was the most inventive and prolific northern European artist of his age. This book discusses his life and work in relation to three interrelated themes: spirit, ingenuity, and genius. It argues that Rubens and his reception were pivotal in the transformation of early modern ingenuity into Romantic genius. Ranging across the artist’s entire career, it explores Rubens’s engagement with these themes in his art and life. Alexander Marr looks at Rubens’s forays into altarpiece painting in Italy as well as his collaborations with fellow artists in his hometown of Antwerp, and his complex relationship with the spirit of pleasure. It concludes with his late landscapes in connection to genius loci, the spirit of the place.

Although his popularity is eclipsed by Rembrandt today, Peter Paul Rubens was revered by his contemporaries as the greatest painter of his era, if not of all history. His undeniable artistic genius, bolstered by a modest disposition and a reputation as a man of tact and discretion, made him a favorite among monarchs and political leaders across Europe—and gave him the perfect cover for the clandestine activities that shaped the landscape of seventeenth-century politics. In Master of Shadows, Mark Lamster brilliantly recreates the culture, religious conflicts, and political intrigues of Rubens’s time, following the painter from Antwerp to London, Madrid, Paris, and Rome and providing an insightful exploration of Rubens’s art as well as the private passions that influenced it.

Dark-eyed and distant Alma Rubens was one of the first female stars of the early feature film industry in the 1910s. She was a major star by 1920, but before the decade was over her screen career was marked and marred by cocaine abuse. She died in 1931 at age 33--a Hollywood beauty, a casualty of Hollywood "snow," yet much more. As an actress she was versatile, demonstrating a talent that was ahead of its time with her gentle and subtle expressions. This book contains Rubens's autobiography, a text titled This Bright World Again that was serialized in newspapers in 1931. Ghost-written or not or somewhere in between, this long forgotten document deals with Rubens's addiction and despair. In addition, a new biography of Rubens takes the reader from her birth in San Francisco through an impoverished upbringing, three short-lived marriages, and her career in pictures for Triangle Film, Cosmopolitan, Fox and other production companies. The story of her film career mingles with a tale of desperate drug addiction that led to hospital stays, violence and deception. A filmography lists her credits from 1913 to 1929.

With his many facets, his virtuosity and his prodigious output, Peter Paul Rubens is one of the giants in the history of art. "Peter Paul Rubens: The Life of Achilles" sheds light on a relatively unfamiliar aspect of Rubens' enormous body of work, a series of tapestries featuring the Greek hero Achilles. Circa 1630-1635, Rubens painted the designs for these remarkable tapestries, depicting eight decisive moments in the life of Achilles. First, he made eight small sketches in oil, some of the finest of his oeuvre. Then the artist and his studio produced large modelli, painted in oil on panels, that further refined his sketches. The exquisite sketches and modelli led finally to magnifications in full-scale cartoons, which were placed under the loom for the tapestry weavers to work from. For the first time, this volume brings together the multiple works that make up the Achilles series, scattered as they are among various public and private collections throughout the world. Here the process from sketch to tapestry is followed in magnificent color illustrations. Accompanying texts consider the genesis, history and iconography of the series.