The ART of PETER PAUL RUBENS: MYTHOLOGY, ALLEGORY, and THEOLOGY

Peter Paul Rubens is one of the most recognizable names in art. He was one of, if not the leading figures of the Flemish Golden Age, and a supreme representative of the broader Baroque artistic tradition, taking inspiration from Caravaggio. Rubens also happens to be my favorite artist, in part because his paintings capture the totality of the human condition in its fleshy, pathological, spiritual and metaphysical realities. His paintings speak to us, move with us, and ultimately inspire us. The role of art in human life is a long and conflictual one. Plato famously banished the artists, the poets, from his ideal republic. This was not because he disagreed with art – Plato also wanted to be a dramatist before turning to philosophy – and this spirit is still visible in the fact that he chose to write in dramatic form rather than Pythagorean prose common to pre-Socratic philosophy, but because he thought the art espoused by the poets was insufficient for the good life. Luckily for us, Plato lost that battle. The 20th century saw a renewed struggle over the place and role of art in human life. Conservative humanists in the tradition of Matthew Arnold, art being part of the humanist expression and experience, embodying in painted form the best which has been thought and said about the human condition, championed the role of art as part of holistic life. This, in turn, was rooted in the earlier Romantist movements of the 19th century, which sought to reinvigorate art with the spiritual and metaphysical yearning that was destroyed by Enlightenment materialism. Avant-garde radicals, best represented by Susan Sontag, arose in conflict with those conservative humanists. They also wanted art to be at the forefront of human life, but instead sought to offer an erotic of art in place of the supposedly static humanism of the conservatives. It is safe to say that Susan Sontag and the avant-garde butchers have won the day, at least for the moment, much to our broader cultural and intellectual impoverishment. Only a handful of largely classical and humanist preparatory schools and liberal arts universities still retain that spirit of aesthetic humanism begun by Augustine and developed over the centuries after him, reaching a certain acme in the Council of Trent, which ultimately produced the spirit and the ideology of the artistic tradition of Peter Paul Rubens. Rubens grew up in the aftermath of Trent's declaration that artists offer spiritual meditation and theological allegory in their paintings. Rubens was, from this historical context, one of the finest artists who sought to realize this essential spiritual component to art, teaching and touching the human soul through paintings. They continued to teach and touch us long after his death. One of the most iconic of Rubens's artwork is his 1604-1605 piece, The Fall of Bétan. Rubens, being part of that sublime Baroque tradition, took up the mantle of infusing allegory and theology with classical mythology and biblical and religious stories. Bétan, as we know, was not part of the biblical or Christian religious inheritance. He was, however, part of the Greek inheritance, and that was slowly married into Christian philosophy, culture and tradition over millennia of theological innovation and synthesis. In the aftermath of the Renaissance and the humanism that sprang from the universities with church support, the familiarity with the high culture of Greece was now part and parcel of the culture of the educated elite in a fractured and warring Christendom. Catholics especially took the declaration of Trent's artistic imperative to include the sanctification of classical mythology in their paintings. Bétan's pride, his arrogance and destruction of the world and the destruction of himself offered an opportunity to embrace the creative freedom of a non-biblical story and infuse it with those spiritual and theological meditations and truths that the church was now pushing through its patronage of the arts in its conflict with the Protestant Reformation. We are all familiar with the story, but Rubens's art tells an even more captivating one. Bétan steals his father's chariot. Bétan's father is the sun god Helios. Helios rides the chariot through the sky to bring the rise of the sun and bring life ultimately to the world. Bétan seizes the chariot without proper prudence or delegated authority. He flies into the air uncontrollably, bringing death and destruction over all the earth. The gods must make a split-second decision to save the world from the destruction wrought by Bétan. So Zeus, as we know through his thunderbolt, kills him. In the painting, the moment of this decisive encounter is captured and captured oh so wonderfully. Bétan, as you can see, is overturned, inverted, falling head-first into the abyss below, representing death. The Hori, the winged butterfly creatures off to the side of the painting, shriek in terror. The solar bands in the skies have been disrupted by the entire incident. Taken together, the terror of the Hori and the breaking of the solar bands bring the disharmony of the seasons and the end of the harmony of the cosmos. The light of heaven, where the gods, or god, sit, is the only section of sublime light, representing the light and power of the heavens, where the thunderbolts of salvation came. The winged horses are now broken free of their reins and bolt in a myriad of different directions. What strikes us in the painting is the pathological beauty of it. We see Bétan falling head-first, face covered while being disrobed, to his death and shame. Chaos reigns supreme throughout the painting, but there is also a paradoxical orderliness to the chaos. It reminds us that despite the chaos and destruction that is all around us, there is in fact a divine providence over the cosmos. Chaos and destruction do not necessarily entail an absolute chaos and a lack of cosmic control. There remains order and proportionality to the world, thanks to the heavens, even if our free will choices bring death and destruction. Hence the only light in the neoplatonic point of infinity, which draw our gaze into the heavens, attract our attention as we scan the painting. Life is found in the light and heavens, which slowly lead our eyes away from the chaos that is in the center of the painting, the central chaos of the chariot and the dark destruction of the world below, symbolized by its covering darkness and coloring. The fall of Bétan is not just a rendering of the story of Bétan's pride and arrogance which led to his downfall. It is also an allegory of the fall of man within the Christian tradition. Bétan, like Adam and Eve, brings death and destruction unto the world through an act of usurpation and pride. This death and destruction from usurping pride and rebellion, carrying implicit political connotations that are otherwise hidden in the painting, we must remember the era the political context in which this painting comes about, during the religious wars of the Reformation, destroys the original harmony of the world, and this permits chaos and death to enter it. Yet despite this tragedy, the light from heaven implies that there remains an order to it all. We are not doomed to eternal shrinking and grief, as the Hori are. What flows from pride and usurpation, a false enlightenment, represented by the color red in the cloak that is falling off of Bétan, revealing his false enlightenment, is, of course, chaos, death, and destruction. In a theological language, sin. Even so, the majesty of the painting in its carnal depiction of the cosmos and the pathologies it can inspire, the grief of Bétan and the Hori, sympathy for the mythical flying horses, an unadulterated sense of sublime beauty, meditation and contemplation over its signification, the drawing of our eyes to the point of infinity, which is the domain of the gods, seems to strike out at us and grab the very heart and soul of its onlookers as we observe the painting, and this, of course, is intentional. As Schopenhauer said, we are not disinterested observers. We are very much intimately bound up with the aesthetics that we encounter throughout, and this is something that Rubens seemed to psychologically understand. All the pathologies within the fall of Bétan grab our attention. We do, in fact, grieve for Bétan and the Hori. We have sympathy for the mythological horses as they bolt in all directions and terror, and we meditate and contemplate, looking at the beauty of everything that the painting encapsulates. We are fully immersed in the drama that this painting represents. We ourselves are part of it. We encounter beauty in the painting. As mentioned, we are overcome with the emotions of grief, horror, pity and sympathy. In a word, Rubens painted the totality of the human condition in the fall of Bétan. From classical mythology to a Christian one, another one of Rubens' great paintings is his 1608 work Saint George and the Dragon. Many of us are familiar with this story as well. Saint George, a Christian soldier and member of Emperor Diocletian's Praetorian Guard, was martyred for his faith. The stories surrounding his life and legacy are numerous. Romance, soldiery, martyrdom. He was the closest thing to a Christian Hercules or Jason in the world of late antiquity. His most famous myth is slaying the dragon on horseback, a testament to his military bravado and faith in God, which emerged in the age of knighthood and crusades in 11th century Europe. It has stuck ever since. Rubens' grandiose painting is rich in biblical allusions. The dragon is representative of the serpent from the Garden of Eden and evokes the demonic darkness of Satan. The princess, beyond being a cultural contextual manifestation of the early troubadour romantic heritage of medieval Europe, is also the imagistic manifestation and symbol of the Christian Church, the Bride of Christ. The lamb that she clings to is innocence, thus making the association of the princess as church with more concrete. The bride is clutching the Lamb of God. Of course, the great saint himself, seated on his brilliant and beautiful white stallion, the color of goodness and purity, strikes at the dragon from on high, as if heaven sent into the world to save the earthly bride from being consumed by this terrible monster. It is symbolic of God and Christ coming to slay the forces of sin and darkness and death, represented in the form of Saint George attacking the dragon. The painting is also a retelling, therefore, of the typological allegory of Christian theology and the cosmic struggle between good and evil. What captivates the eyes is the action and passion that this painting contains. We see human and animal emotions rushing across the painting. It fills us, moves our own hearts and soul, and nearly overwhelms us in a moment of sublimity. Again, if we think of Arthur Schopenhauer, we are immersed participants in this artwork. We are also drawn to the color contrast between the light, the princess and church, Saint George and Christ, and the darkness that divides the painting, the division between the two worlds of heaven and hell, the city of God and the city of man, purity and sin. Our combatants are locked in cosmic struggle, but we also know from the painting that good will triumph over evil, light will expel the darkness. Saint George in this painting is about to deliver the culling blow against the dragon, though we are not privy to that decisive blow just yet. Rubens, therefore, is reminding us that our lives are like that of Saint George in the painting, always in the midst of combat. We are locked in this active struggle, even if we, as goodness will triumph in the end, must always remember that, yes, good will triumph, but in our own lives, represented here in some very beautiful and poignant way by Saint George, we are always in the midst of spiritual combat. And that is what is being represented by Saint George and the dragon. We know how the story goes. Saint George does, in fact, slay the dragon. That's how the story became popular by the Baroque period and why Rubens ultimately chose this particular story to paint about. Yet when we look at the painting, we are caught in that wrestling, that tussle, that conflict between the two worlds. And that is what our lives are all about. Turning now to the grandest and most sublime of Rubens' specifically biblical art, his 1611 work, The Elevation of the Cross, we are met with a three-part painting depicting the culmination of the Passion of Christ. During the height of the Counter-Reformation, when the doctrines of the Eucharist were being questioned by Reformed Protestants and the Eucharistic wars being waged throughout the intellectual classes, Rubens' painting is a powerful reminder that Christ is not just some spiritual entity, but that his bodily sacrifice is the moment of salvation. And therefore, echoing the Gospel of John, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Christ's bodily sacrifice, as he is raised up on the cross, is the center of the painting, a subtle but powerful reminder that it was Christ's physical presence that wrought salvation to the world. The physicality of Christ, the bodily presence of Christ, is the heart of the painting and the heart of the Christian Catholic doctrine of salvation. God came and dwelt among humans in the flesh, joining us in our weakness and frailty so as to beautify us and grant us the path toward divinization and beautification. In Christ's physicality on the cross, Rubens is making a statement amid the Eucharistic and theological wars. This is my body, which is broken for you. In the lifting of Christ on the cross, we are also struck by the strong men and soldiers that surround him and aid in raising the cross into its place. Rubens here is trying to communicate to us the ultimate brutality of this event. Weaklings did not put Christ to death. It was the forceful strength of the fallen world, soldiers, armies, and the brutish force, the libido dominandi, the lust to dominate that brought about this desecration and death of the holy innocent. Off to the right hand side of the painting is the mocking power of the Roman Empire, which is also preparing the crucifixion of the two thieves. Like the best of Rubens' painting, the elevation of Christ on the cross is filled with a lot of action, and that action immerses us as onlookers. We participate in this painting as well. The painted figures are not moving as we move, yet we cannot help but feel the movement of the entire painting, the passion it induces, the physicality of the transitions of light and darkness, the weeping and gleeful laments and mocking of those witnessing the event. The painting is truly alive. Moreover, the empty cross loses all the passion and pathology that the crucifixion of Christ entails. This again is a subtle theological insertion into the painting. We do not see an empty cross. We see Christ on the cross. Against the stripping of the human heart and its passions relating to the most central event in Christian consciousness and identity, Rubens' painting restores the heart of the human condition and the heart of Jesus Christ as the central message of the painting. This was not some passionless symbolic or spiritual event. It was physical, brutal and passionate. It was a brutal, physical and passionate occurrence for all involved. And we were involved in this crucifixion too. It happened in the flesh, where skin can be bruised, mangled and sliced open, with all that pain felt by the human body of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the bottom left-hand corner we encounter a lamenting Mary Magdalene who keeps her eyes focused on Christ. Christ, however, is gazing upward in that powerful moment captured in the Gospel of Luke, when Christ being crucified pleads to God the Father, Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do. Originally the painting included additional pieces above it with an image of God the Father. Taken in totality then, Mary Magdalene, symbolizing the Christian faithful, Christ and God the Father, that part of the painting we are missing, are ultimately one, united in this horrific and brutal moment of sacrificial salvation. We too are drawn into that unity, not as disinterested observers, again as Schopenhauer notes about the power of art, but as participants in the drama unfolding before our very eyes, united in this dramatic event beside Mary Magdalene and St. John and the Virgin Mary. St. John comforts Mary, behold your mother, as they lock hands together in a moment of grieving comfort and Mary looks on with strength and acceptance of the sacrifice as her son is lifted into the sky, symbolizing in some ways also the ascension of Christ into the heavens. Their eyes, the eyes of St. John and the Virgin Mother, also locked with Christ and therefore like Mary Magdalene, symbolize unity with Christ, who is again united with the Father in the missing part of the painting. Here too is a great moment of symbolism for us to recognize as we look at the art. Christ is being raised into the sky. Rubens is also informing us of the transformative event that the crucifixion was. Christ is being elevated to the heavens, which he will soon return to as the first fruit of heavenly ascent and that the rest of us will follow him in suit if we are united with him and the Father as Mary Magdalene, St. John and the Virgin Mother are. So this is not just Christ on the cross like earlier renaissance paintings. This is in fact a whole, an entirely whole painting symbolizing the unity of God the Father, Christ the Son and the Church as a whole. All of us who are united with Christ and therefore united with the Father in heaven. Gazing upon the crucifying of Christ as he is lifted on the cross and soaring into the air, the full realization of the world and its terror, beauty, passion and pathological emotions are revealed. The Roman soldiers mock Christ in their haughtiness. The strong men placing the cross in the ground and hoisting the King of the Jews into the sky reveals the lust to dominate that so plagues our world. We see youth and frailty, multiple generations of humanity, the old woman and the babe sucking Mary Magdalene's breast reminding us of the lineage of life itself and that Christ came for old, young and middle aged. Mary and John embrace each other in grieving comfort, emotionally disturbed but remaining steadfastly strong because of their faith, a grieving sorrow that reveals their love. Meanwhile Christ himself looks up reminding us, per St. Paul, that our home is in the heavens and not down here on the dungy earth. The painting truly encapsulates the totality of the human condition and this returns us to what I have been speaking concerning the activity, the immersive passion of Rubens' paintings. Rubens' paintings capture not a static understanding of humanity but the activity and the pulsating desire and pathology of our very nature. Rubens' paintings embody the reality of an active spirit of life that is central to human existence. Passion, Rubens is telling us, is the very essence of human life and even the divine life. It can lead to death and destruction as it did to Phaeton. It can lead to struggle and combat as it does for St. George and it can ultimately lead to our salvation, Christ on the cross. That is why Rubens is irresistible and why few, if any, have been able to match his greatness after 400 years. The human condition really does pulsate through his paintings and it invites us to rediscover our own humanity. His paintings are alive, alive with the heart, soul and blood that move our own lives and invite us to rediscover who we really are.