The Rainbow Landscape (1640)
Peter Paul Rubens·1640
Historical Context
The Rainbow Landscape (c. 1636) from the collection associated with the Electors Palatine is the companion piece to the great National Gallery landscape A View of Het Steen — two panoramic views of the Flemish countryside near Rubens's country estate that together constitute the most ambitious landscape commission of his late career. Where the Het Steen landscape depicts the morning light of early summer with the estate's towers visible at the left, the Rainbow Landscape shows the evening light of autumn after a storm, a rainbow arching over the harvest fields where laborers are at work. The pairing of morning and evening, summer and autumn, creates a meditation on time and seasonal cycle that connects the landscape tradition to the philosophical tradition of vanitas painting without any of the conventional memento mori symbols. Constable singled out both landscapes as supreme examples of European landscape painting when studying them at the National Gallery and the Duke of Arenberg's collection; his own engagement with atmospheric light in Flemish paintings was fundamental to the development of English Romantic landscape.
Technical Analysis
The panoramic composition captures the luminous atmosphere of the Flemish countryside with extraordinary atmospheric subtlety. The rainbow creates a natural arch that unifies the composition, while Rubens' fluid brushwork renders the landscape with intimate, personal observation.
Look Closer
- ◆A rainbow arcs across the sky after a rainstorm, its prismatic colors painted with the atmospheric observation of an artist who loved this landscape.
- ◆The Flemish countryside stretches in a vast panorama, every field, tree, and farmstead rendered with affectionate specificity.
- ◆Peasants and livestock animate the foreground, their small-scale activities providing human measure to the expansive landscape.
- ◆Completed in the year of his death, this final painting has an almost valedictory quality of serene farewell.
Condition & Conservation
This late landscape from 1640, one of the last paintings Rubens completed before his death in May of that year, has been conserved as a work of special biographical and artistic significance. The atmospheric effects, particularly the rainbow, have been carefully maintained through conservation.
