Master of Shadows by Mark Lamster

history. Across the courtyard facade of the workshop, Rubens re-created in what appeared to be low sculptural relief the works of his esteemed forebears, the most famous painters of Greek history: Zeuxis, Timanthes, Protogenes, Apelles. Their works were known only from literary descriptions, and in his own writings Rubens himself suggested it was best they be kept “in imagination alone, like dreams.” Attempts to reproduce them, he wrote, would result only in “something insipid or inconsistent with the grandeur of the ancients… and fail to do justice to those great spirits whom I honor with the profoundest reverence, preferring indeed to admire the traces they have left than to venture to proclaim myself capable of matching them, even in thought alone.” Those words had an appealingly humble ring, but in practice he teasingly violated his own warning. The frieze running along the workshop facade was actually not a frieze but a trompe l’oeil depiction of a frieze painted in grisaille, a technique in which monochrome pigment can be used to mimic the effect of stone. This artifice was extended and expandedon the garden facade of the workshop, where a three-dimensional loggia was faked onto what was in fact a blank wall. Above this scene, a painting by Rubens was stretched out to dry, apparently hanging over the “frieze.” Only the drying canvas was not a real drying canvas but a painting of a drying canvas. The painter’s more erudite friends (and especially the artists who visited) almost certainly appreciated this elaborate inside joke. The ancient painters Rubens most admired were famous for their ability to fool the eye. The masterpiece of Apelles, the greatest of those artists, was his
Calumny, an
allegorical rumination on the dangers of bearing false witness. On that front, Rubens had surely proven himself capable of matching his illustrious predecessor. Unfortunately, that subtext was lost on the royal eye of the Infanta Isabella, who supposedly asked that Rubens take the drying work down for inspection during one of her visits to the studio—an awkward moment, to be sure.
    Inside, the house was furnished and fitted in the best taste, a necessity for entertaining distinguished guests. Royalty from across Europe came to the Rubens house to sit for the painter and to arrange for the purchase of works from his studio. A stop at the elegant home on the Wapper was all but obligatory for dignitaries visiting Antwerp, though travelers did not always arrive at its doors solely with art on their minds. The large formal garden in the back of the house was an excellent place for a private stroll, where delicate political affairs might be addressed away from prying eyes and ears. Moreover, Rubens himself was developing a reputation as a man of insight and discretion, and his proximity to the archdukes Albert and Isabella made him a useful conduit for those wishing to initiate back-channel negotiations with the sovereigns. The intimacy of his relationship with the archdukes during this time is plainly evident in a painting of a gathering at the Antwerp home of Cornelis van der Geest, one of the artist’s friends. In this picture,painted by Willem van Haecht in 1615, Albert and Isabella stand just below Rubens’s recently completed
Battle of the Amazons
, which hangs on a back wall. In the foreground is the painter himself, lecturing the royal couple on the merits of a Quentin Metsys
Madonna and Child
.
    Rubens kept a private office on the second floor of the workshop, and it was from there that he conducted most of his correspondence. Ever since his return from Rome, he had become an essential node in an informal network of like-minded thinkers—men such as Lipsius, Galileo, Isaac Casaubon, and Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc—who exchanged ideas on subjects ranging from ancient history to philosophy to the natural sciences. Political affairs figured prominently, especially for Rubens. A born scholar, he had