Bilbao Fine Arts Museum
9/28/22 - 1/22/23
Sketches for Torre de la Parada
Apollo and Daphne
Apollo fell in love with Daphne after he was hit by an arrow shot by Cupid. He pursued her, mad with desire, and almost caught her. The terrified girl implored her father—a river god—to save her, and he turned her into a laurel tree (Ovid, Metamorphoses, book I). Thereafter, Apollo had to be just by wearing leaves from this tree as a crown.
The vertical line marking the central axis of the composition is similar to many others found in the sketches in this series. Just as he did in the majority of paintings in this series, Rubens outsourced the painting itself to another artist, in this case Theodoor van Thulden (the painting belongs to the Museo del Prado).
Cupid and Psyche
The famous story of Cupid and Psyche is part of the Metamorphoses by the second-century writer and philosopher Apuleius (also known as The Golden Ass). Psyche stopped loving Cupid when she realised that he had been spying on her—she was awoken by a drop of hot oil that dripped from his candle. Rubens depicts the moment just before this incident, when the girl was still wallowing in the peerless beauty of the god of love and desire. Despite the tricks designed by the jealous Venus, the two lovers reunited.
By wisely alternating zones that are more or less opaque in the layer of brown paint surrounding the figures, Rubens contributes to the sense of spatial Depth.
Scylla and Glaucus
The story of the sea god Glaucus and his desire for Scylla is recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (book XIV), just like the majority of myths that Rubens painted for Torre de la Parada. Seeking the woman’s love, Glaucus enlisted the help of the goddess Circe, who made his pain eternal because she was in love with him.
On the right, several dogs are attacking Scylla, who has her arms raised, just before she is turned into another animal. Glaucus is watching the scene, horrified at the loss of the woman he had been trying to seduce.
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Hercules Discovering Purple
The story is told by the Greek Julius Pollux in his Onomasticon (book I), written in the second century. While walking with his owner along a beach in Tyre, Hercules’ dog bit a mollusc shell and stained his lips purple. This is how the most valuable dye in the ancient world, especially during the Roman period, was discovered. The city of Tyre, currently in Lebanon, is depicted in the background. The purple from this source was particularly prized.
The paint in whitish and earthen tones is thicker on the left side of the scene, which Rubens outlined with a black line drawn with pencil t the loss of the woman he had been trying to seduce. Bayonne, musée Bonnat-Helleu.
Pan and Syrinx
The hypersexual god of Arcadia, Pan, combines the features of a human and a goat. In this scene, inspired by the verses in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (book I), he libidinously and violently approaches the nymph Syrinx, who flees from him and plunges into the Ladon River. Syrinx implores the river nymphs to turn into cattail reeds to save her, which they did. Pan made his syrinx, or flute, from these reeds.
The numerous vertical lines underlying the entire composition (they are particularly visible in the upper left-hand corner) are the marks left by a thick brush used to give the board a tone before painting the scene. Rubens left this type of line visible in many of his sketches.
Selene (or Diana) and Endymion
The Greek Moon goddess Selene’s (sometimes identified with the goddess Diana) love of Endymion made Zeus jealous. When the goddess asked him to make the handsome man eternally young, Zeus instead made him fall into eternal slumber. The story is recounted by the Archaic poet Sappho, as well as other sources. Sappho’s work often inverts the male and female roles, as the goddesses seek to seduce or violate different men.
Rubens enlivened the surface of the board with the vigorous movement of his paintbrush. The goddess’s gesture makes her pain credible. On the upper right-hand part, we can see the marks of a stick that the painter used to scratch the still-wet paint on the area where he dragged it. Bayonne, musée Bonnat-Helle.
Sketch for Eucharist series
Rubens painted this sketch in preparation for one of the four series of tapestries that he designed throughout his lifetime, the Eucharist series. The commission came from Isabel Clara Eugenia, for whom Rubens worked as a court painter and diplomat. The theme of the series is the glorification of the mystery of the Eucharist, expressed here by a scene from the Old Testament in which the angel provides food and drink to the prophet Elijah. Several religious texts (including Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica) interpreted this biblical story as a foreshadowing of the Eucharist.
Rubens’ helpers used this sketch to make a large painting (cartoon) on which the tapestry weavers based their work. The scene was envisioned as a tapestry hanging from columns, trompe l’oeil style. The columns were repainted by an artist after Rubens, perhaps because he barely outlined them.
