Peter Paul Rubens, Elevation of the Cross

We're standing in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, looking at an enormous altarpiece by Peter Paul Rubens. While it's beautiful to see it here in a church environment, we're also not seeing it in the place that it was originally intended for. It was originally intended for the Church of St. Walburgis, the church at the heart of the medieval core of Antwerp. And it's a church that dated back to the eighth century. It was near the wharf where all the ships arriving in Antwerp would harbor. It was an area of fishermen and boatmen, very lively, densely built. A small chapel had grown by the early 16th century into a really impressive Gothic church. So if you arrived in Antwerp as a sailor and you wanted to thank the Lord for a safe passage, that was the first church you were going to step into. As it extended into this dense urban fabric, the new choir had to be built over a street. So 19 steps. And Rubens's picture was conceived to be placed up in that high choir. And at that time, it had a predella, three paintings along the bottom, figures along the top, and at the very top, a pelican, which symbolized God's sacrifice for mankind's salvation. So you'd walk in and at the far end, up those 19 stairs, you would see Rubens's enormous altarpiece. In a way, it takes a few moments of looking to untangle the bodies of the figures because Rubens has fused them into this one sort of effort of elevating the cross. And the figure that gets lost for me at first is the figure who's got his back up against the wood of the cross, using his legs as leverage to help lift the cross. You have to run your eyes over it, almost feel the knots of the muscles and the thick calves to make out single bodies cooperating to lift up this heavy body of Christ. And if we just look at the body of Christ itself, it's so beautiful. The knees and the thighs turn one way. The torso turns a different way. So there's this almost serpentine movement to the figure that is so Michelangelo. I think about Michelangelo's slaves, for example. Yes, everything is sinuous and attractive to the eye, really. This is a Christ triumphant. He's looking up at God and has resorted to his faith in the knowledge that this is his destiny. In that gable above was an image of God. So Christ is actually looking up at God and acknowledging this destiny. I'd like to think too about the context of Rubens just coming back after having spent eight years in Italy. Rubens was trying to establish himself in Rome, but as his mother was gravely ill, he returned to Antwerp. And somehow Rubens often turns out to be the right man at the right time on the exact right spot. In 1609, the 12-year truce is concluded between the Southern and the Northern Netherlands. Money flows into the coffers of Antwerp's merchants. The archdukes institute this policy whereby they ask the churches to replace the paintings that were vandalized during iconoclast attacks. During the period when Antwerp was under Protestant control, the churches were emptied. Images were destroyed. Images were a central difference between the Protestants and the Catholics. They were part of that battle. The Reformation had stirred doubts in the church on the use of images. The Council of Trent had had long discussions on whether they were appropriate, which types of images. And they had weeded out practices that strayed far from what the Bible actually told. But once the issue was settled and the Catholic church had firmly established that images were essential to the Catholic faith in edifying, in converting, and in touching people, the flow of images that ensued was so strong and lively. This was a confident Catholicism. You can even look at this and see Rubens sort of pulling up his cross as a sort of defense of imagery and the powers of images in itself. We have this very specific context that's so important for Antwerp. And we also have saints featured that were also important to the city of Antwerp. The church was devoted to St. Walburgis, also to St. Amandus, who was important in the early Christianization of Antwerp. And the other wing has St. Eloy, the patron of smiths, who also had an altar in this very church, and St. Catherine of Siena. These huge monumental figures, really almost unhuman lengths to their bodies, but also very solid and dressed in these glittering robes. So even when the altarpiece was closed, it would have made a huge impression, even seen from afar. Rubens was really someone who was aware of how to create drama and suck people into his world. So as you looked down the nave, it was almost as if you were watching the cross itself being raised right in front of you. So if you imagine this huge painting up in the choir, you have the altar beneath it, and every time the priest would raise the host, the body of Christ, he would, and everyone in the church would devotionally at least participate in the elevation of the cross and in the lifting of Christ's body. So Rubens invites us to almost take part in this fundamental drama of Christianity, and he displays a catalog of human emotions from the dignified mourning of Mary and John to the cruelty of the Roman officers on Christ's left side, to the intense emotions of the women on the right, to the crudeness of these muscular bodies of the men pulling up the cross in what seems almost bestial force. You know, nine men to pull up that single body, you can really feel the weight of the moment. I'm always struck by the way in which the cross is being raised into our space, and all of the figures are so close to us. These muscular figures spilling out into our space. His use of the rather traditional format of a triptych is innovative as well because he fills it in as if the action takes place in a single continuous space. Often historically in a triptych, these three panels would appear entirely separate, but here Rubens is in a way expanding the scene of the elevation. He marries at the end of 1609 with Isabella Brandt, and in 1610 he buys a large plot of land with a 16th century house on it, which he's going to expand into a workshop. And in that exact year, 1610, we find him in an inn near St. Walburgis' church with Cornelis van der Geest, a fabulously wealthy merchant and supporter of St. Walburgis' church with the wardens of the church and the priest discuss the commission of this altarpiece. The priest and the wardens had been doing the rounds, collecting money from the parishioners, raising funds, but it's mainly Cornelis van der Geest who would remain a lifelong friend of Rubens' who would make sure the job was financed. So this commission really was his first big splash in Antwerp. He'd had other commissions, but this was the high altar of the central church and the historic core of the city. Once this was up there, it was quite clear that Rubens was the man. This is made for the lovers of art, for the joy in painting, really. And I think that's one of Rubens' strong points. If you get to know him, everything is infused with this pleasure in painting, with this pleasure in images. He says that his job is a dolcissima professione and you can sense it. It's like a sweet profession to be a painter.