Rubens

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) is both one of the world's greatest painters and a mystery. His monumental canvases, featuring battling lions, sensual gardens of love, and 'Rubenesque' women, are viewed with wonder, joy and a suspicion that they have little to do with modern times. The pre-eminent genius of the Baroque, who worked as a diplomat and spy, and whose paintings are displayed in museums world-wide, studied and fought over at auctions, seems disconnected from the present. Incorporating a vivid recreation of Rubens's life, this biography of his age and its artists sets out to correct this situation. It focuses on Rubens's quest for absolute beauty, an intellectual adventure deduced from his paintings, drawings and letters, along with those of his contemporaries (including some family letters ). It reveals that Rubens's ultimate understanding of beauty is timely, foreshadowing twentieth-century cinema and science.