Shadow Master

Master of Shadows

Photo Credit: Art Resource

The Secret Diplomatic Career
of the Painter Peter Paul Rubens
by Mark Lamster
Nan A. Talese, 336 pp., $29.95

When a surname becomes the basis for an adjective, the resulting meaning tends to be resoundingly one-dimensional. To wit: the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, an artist with a penchant for busty nudes replete with puckerings, the occasional roll, and dimpled mounds, begetting the word “Rubenesque” for any amply proportioned female.

Chances are, you’re much better acquainted with the adjective than the work of the painter; few people can cite a Rubens painting by name, but “Rubenesque” is a word you could hear while watching American Idol. History so often recalls Rubens as an Old World master of a painting style—symbolic representation, heavy on Greek and biblical references—that we now think of as dusty and far removed. After all, how many modern museum-strollers have the time to invest in all of the classical books you’d need to make sense of his symbolism? But despite the one-dimensionality associated with the painter’s name, here’s a book that posits Rubens as a multitasker to best any electronic gizmo-equipped world-beater going today.

Rubens wasn’t content with merely being, conceivably, the world’s greatest painter for the better portion of his adult life. Rather, he outfitted his vocational title with a host of others. Like superspy, for one—in addition to treaty negotiator, statesmen well met, wealthy landowner, antiquities dealer, factory head. Rubens enjoyed a joke, but he was a prideful man, and you have to wonder what he would think of the irony that rarely is his name associated with top-level performance skills across a range of disciplines and most often with multiple trips to the refrigerator.