Helen Rosslyn TV - Waldemar Januszczak TV - Tim Marlow TV - This Green and Pleasant Land TV - Art of the Heist TV - Andrew Graham-Dixon TV - Britain’s Lost Masterpieces TV -
Rubens and his pupil Van Dyck: and it was the Arundels who were largely responsible for introducing these two painters to England. Helen Rosslyn, Bought with Love: The Secret History of British Art Collections I: The Pioneers, BBC 2013
I’ve got all the time in the world for Peter Paul Rubens ... The University of Cambridge made Sir Peter Paul Rubens a master of art. Waldemar Januszczak, Baroque! – From St Peter’s to St Paul’s II, BBC 2013
The modern world really has it in for Rubens. It’s as if everything he did jars without sensibilities. Waldemar Januszczak, Rubens: An Extra Large Story, BBC 2015
As for his women – oh my God! – Rubens’s women! ibid.
I think Rubens is one of the most exciting painters the world has seen. Just look at all that invention, that energy, that drama. ibid.
Peter Paul Rubens: the Flemish painter sought by popes and princes, saints and the odd sinner, in order to embellish the walls and ceilings of their palaces and churches, and to polish up the odd ego. He put the voluptuous female form right at the heart of western art. He used it as a vehicle to express everything from desire to human destiny. Great Artists with Tim Marlow s1e9: Rubens, Sky Arts 2003
But above all by the Venetian painter Titian, whose luminous use of colour and free use of brush strokes was to have a profound effect on the young artist. ibid.
But it’s the theatricality that strikes the strongest chord. The dramatic use of light and colour which formed part of an emerging style known as the Baroque. And Rubens became its grandest exponent. ibid.
In 1611 Rubens was commissioned ... to design an altar piece for a chapel in the transept of the cathedral here in Antwerp. And the result was one of the most spectacular paintings in the history of sacred art: it’s called the Descent from the Cross, and shows Christ’s limp lifeless body being taken down from the wooden cross into the arms of St John. ibid.
London also gave Rubens the chance to paint on a grand scale when he was asked by Charles I to decorate the new Banqueting House being designed by Inigo Jones. ibid.
Conversion of Paul ... A miasma of paint and energy ... The Descent of Christ ... one of the great devotional paintings in all of Western art. Tim Marlow at the Courtauld 2/3
Peter Paul Rubens: Landscape with St George & the Dragon. This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting, BBC 2011
It started as one of the most perfect art heists. Two Rubens stolen in broad daylight from a gallery in Spain leaving no clues. With the art world on high alert, trying to sell the stolen paintings was to prove the thief’s biggest challenge. Art of the Heist s2e6, Miami Sting
Peter Paul Rubens of Antwerp was one of the greatest artists of his time, the mid-seventeenth century, and a master of the Baroque. ibid.
The thief is able to walk out of the museum before anybody notices the paintings are missing. It could not have been simpler. ibid.
Miami: The entire gang had been arrested, and the stolen Rubens recovered. ibid.
My talent is such that no undertaking, however vast in size... has ever surpassed my courage. Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens: The supreme master of a new bold style – the Baroque. Andrew Graham-Dixon, The High Art of the Low Countries: Dream of Plenty, BBC 2013
Britain’s major galleries house some of the finest collections of art to be found anywhere in the world. But there are thousands of other artworks we know little about in the collections of smaller institutions. Over 80% of this publicly owned treasure is in storage and often uncatalogued. Britain’s Lost Masterpieces s2e1, BBC 2017
George Villiers: First Duke of Buckingham after Peter Paul Rubens … one of the giants of art history … One of the most naturally gifted painters who ever lived. ibid.
The intimate relationship between Villiers and King James is well documented. ibid.
Rubens didn’t really like painting portraits. ibid.