Peter Paul Rubens

• Drawings

Rubens was, overall, a greater influence on my work than any other single artist; while Leonardo was my first great influence as a draughtsman, Rubens was a close second in that department, but he was also the primary influence - and Teacher - to me in my painting. Since his genius was so manifold, and his influences on me were in the plural, it might be necessary to write more than one article on him, both to avoid the risk of confusing the reader with too much information in one go, and to explain the connection each subject has with my own work. We will start with Drawing.

Although for most people, Rubens' name conjures up "large fat ladies with a lot of dimples" (cellulite to us,) before I deal with that aspect of his work - the Nude - let's take him as a draughtsman. Drawing is known as "the medium that cannot lie." Most connoisseurs agree that when you are looking at the drawing you are truly seeing the Master - or not, as the case may be. There haven't been that many great draughtsmen, although many people can paint. With painting, especially oil painting, it is possible to "waffle" with the brush, and to cover up or change things as you go along, until they "look right." But with drawing, which cannot be erased, you are looking at the first thoughts of an artist, and the skill with which those first thoughts are translated into line will tell you much about the status of the Master on the scale of things. When, for example, you look the drawings of Leonardo or Michelangelo, two of the greatest draughtsmen (and artists) who ever lived, you don't need to wonder, you will just know what I'm talking about. Exquisite beauty and perfection in every line, every shadow - every thought.

As with his paintings, Rubens covered many subjects with his drawing. He drew the most wonderful portraits, magnificent nude studies and sublime landscape sketches. What is the difference between a drawing and a sketch? There are two differences. A drawing is an end in itself, often taken a considerable amount of time over, and intended as something beautiful to look at as well as being informative. A sketch on the other hand is a few lightening strokes to remind the artist of an idea he had, or to suggest to him a way of composing his work that he suddenly thought of. Sketches were never intended by the artist to be seen by anyone other than himself, but our modern eyes have accustomed us to seeing things in a different, more sophisticated way than did those Masters of old, and so we have come not only to understand such sketches but in many cases prefer them to the more highly finished drawings - sometimes even the resultant paintings!

Young Woman Looking Down ( Study for the Head of Saint Apollonia ) Rubens
Duke of Buckingham Rubens	Self Portrait to Dali Christian
Christian's Copy of Rubens Jardin d'Amour

As to Rubens' "status" as a draughtsman by the way, let me start by telling you that he was up there at number one with Leonardo and Michelangelo...and there are very few number ones, at least for me. Rubens' most highly finished drawings were his portraits, as of course these were meant for his sitters as finished works, often commissioned by the sitter or his or her family. Very few artists ever arrived at having a reputation for drawing to the point where they were actually commissioned to draw a portrait, but Rubens was one such. He used a red chalk known as sanguine (from the French word for blood) and hi-lit his tinted papers with white chalk, sometimes even adding one or two touches of colour with pigment; the same pigment he would use for painting but just treated in a different way.

Sometimes, instead of the red chalk Rubens would use charcoal, so that the portrait would be drawn in black lines - still probably hi-lit with white chalk. This technique fascinated me so much I experimented with it until I found the exact way that it suited me best. I invented a technique of tinting my paper, and made fantastic colours. Every tone of brown and ochre imaginable, the latter inspired by the colour of Roman houses, as when I made these experiments I was by then living in that city. I also tinted papers all shades of blue, as I discovered later Leonardo had done also; he liked to work on blue paper. I then made my drawing of the person in charcoal, using a charcoal pencil and finally hi-lit it with white chalk. The fact that it was impossible to erase or even make alterations on this paper was actually a good thing, and caused my hand to become ever more trained, thus more sure and confident. In the end, I gained a reputation for these drawings that enabled me to earn my living exclusively through them for about fifteen years, until I retired from it to devote my time more to painting. By that time I had portrayed countless famous and less famous people all over Europe as well as in Britain, and then in New York, where I worked for a number of years.

A second kind of drawing that Rubens was master of was the sketches he made to remind him of ideas of paintings. He was going to paint a large composition shortly before he died, in 1640; it was to be called "Le Jardin d'Amour," "The Garden of Love." When I saw this sketch of a couple who later Rubens painted in that composition, I was amazed by it, as not only did I simply find it beautiful, I found it impressive that he used a technique 200 years ahead of its time. To sketch the work in relatively high detail but leave the face of the girl in profile as nothing but an outlined space was so innovative as well as pleasing, the next person to use that technique was Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 - 1901). I so loved this drawing that I copied it...freehand of course, and on paper on which you cannot erase. It was both excellent training and a happy event, as I now have the pleasure of owning the work.

As I had loved that drawing of Rubens so much that I had copied it, he too copied works he saw that he loved - and would often want to be reminded of in those days of no reproductions being available, for his own compositions later. Since Rubens travelled a great deal more than was usual in his day, which he did in his capacity as a diplomat, he saw many works in different countries. Happily for us, he saw the sketch Leonardo had made for his "Battle of Anghiari" and copied it. I say happily because that original sketch by Leonardo has been lost, and we only know it through the copy made by Rubens, who fortunately was such a great draughtsman that we can be fairly sure as to its accuracy. Again, this drawing, the Rubens copy of the lost Leonardo sketch, I loved so much that I copied it, and to this day it remains one of my favourite drawings in the Ichor Collection.

Battle of Anghiari
Christian's Copy of Rubens' Copy of the Lost Leonardo Drawing

Finally, Rubens was a master of the landscape study. He made many beautiful sketches and was the inspiration behind my really beginning to look in the countryside and becoming greatly inspired by what I saw. Apart from countless landscape sketches, originally in my charcoal and chalk technique but later in ink, I eventually became inspired more than anything else by trees, and drew "portraits" of countless ones. I started off in Golden Gate park in San Francisco, and then made many more in Yorkshire in England. Thus in his drawings alone, Rubens had inspired me in no less than four separate ways.

Anthony Christian

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