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Rubens's Theory and Practice of the Imitation of Art Author(S): Jeffrey M Rubens's Theory and Practice of the Imitation of Art Author(s): Jeffrey M. Muller Source: The Art Bulletin , Jun., 1982, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Jun., 1982), pp. 229-247 Published by: CAA Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3050218 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms CAA is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Art Bulletin This content downloaded from 94.71.154.90 on Mon, 01 Feb 2021 11:33:27 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Rubens's Theory and Practice of the Imitation of Art Jeffrey M. Muller Only recently has it been suggested that Rubens informed collector, I was led to question this body of evidence for an his art with theory. Muller Hofstede has proposed to see explanation of the painter's stance towards the art of the Rubens's work in light of the principle "ut pictura poesis" past. The present article therefore considers in depth one as outlined by Lee.' Both Muiller Hofstede and Winner theoretical point: the problem of artistic imitation in have recognized the artist's method of juxtaposing chosen Rubens's thought and practice. The magnification texts and images to generate invention and to discover achieved by this focus reveals both the intricacies and the rules for the imitation of nature.2 Held, adding to larger issues of Rubens's theory. Parkhurst's contributions, has examined the theoretical Rubens looked at the art of the past through a perspec- implications of Rubens's participation in F. Aguilonius's tive defined by Renaissance theories of imitation.6 It was a Opticorum Libri Sex (Antwerp, 1613), demonstrating the one-point perspective centered on the artist's perception artist's self-conscious definition of his own ingenium in of his own position in the history of art. temperamental terms and pointing to Rubens's quasi- That Rubens formulated a theory of artistic imitation is scientific validation of verbal authority with direct made evident by his essay De Imitatione Statuarum, a observation. 3 fragment published from the artist's notebook on theory.7 The evidence that these contributions begin to explore Only three paragraphs long, the essay considers its subject can be circumscribed in a relatively narrow compass, but it in terms and issues that indicate Rubens's point of depar- is rich in visual and philological significance. First, ture and the direction he took in the imitation of art. Rubens kept a notebook on theory which, lost in its Rubens argues in De Imitatione Statuarum that the art- original form, survives in several transcriptions and frag- ist who aims at perfection must have a profound ments.4 Second, some of Rubens's paintings, above all the knowledge of ancient sculpture. This knowledge is to be decoration of his house in Antwerp, make profound state- gained with caution because for some artists, beginners ments about the nature of art.5 Third, comments on the and masters alike, the imitation of sculpture is destructive theory of art are scattered through the painter's "to the point of the extermination of their art." It is correspondence. necessary for the painter to make "judicious" use of the Seeking to understand the choices Rubens made as a statues and, above all, to avoid the taint of the appearance 1 Miiller Hofstede, 50ff. Rensselaer W. Lee, Ut Pictura Poesis: The 5 See Elizabeth McGrath, "The Painted Decoration of Rubens's House," Humanistic Theory of Painting, New York, 1967. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XLI, 1978, 245ff. 2Miiller Hofstede, 50ff. Matthias Winner in Staatliche Museen 6 On Renaissance theories of artistic imitation, see Izora Scott, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Peter Paul Rubens: Kritischer Katalog der Controversies Over the Imitation of Cicero, New York, 1910; Hermann Zeichnungen, exh. cat., Berlin, 1977, 33, No. 5. Gmelin, "Das Prinzip der Imitatio in den romanischen Literaturen der 3 Julius S. Held, "Rubens and Aguilonius: New Points of Contact," Art Renaissance," Romanische Forschungen, XLVi, 1932, 173ff.; Giorgio Sant- Bulletin, LXI, 1979, 257ff. Charles Parkhurst, "Aguilonius' Optics and angelo, II Bembo critico e il principio d'imitazione, Florence, 1950; Rubens' Color," Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, xii, 1961, 35ff.; Giorgio Santangelo, Le epistole "De Imitatione" di Giovanfrancesco Pico Charles Parkhurst, "Red-Yellow-Blue: A Color Triad in Seventeenth- della Mirandola e di Pietro Bembo, Florence, 1954; J. D. P. Warners, Century Painting," Baltimore Museum of Art Annual, iv, 1972, 33ff; "Translatio-Imitatio-Aemulatio," De Nieuwe Taalgids, xLIx, 1956, 289ff., L, 82ff. and 193ff.; Ferruccio Ulivi, L'imitazione nella poetica del 4The most complete discussion to date of the notebook is made by Jaff4, Rinascimento, Milan, 1959; and G. W. Pigman III, "Versions of Imita- I, 297-99, on the notebook itself; 303, on two manuscript transcriptions: tion in the Renaissance," Renaissance Quarterly, xxxIII, 1980, Iff. On the Ms Johnson, and Ms De Ganay. The "Antwerp Sketchbook," the attribu- question of artistic imitation in painting, see Battisti, 86ff.; E. H. Gom- tion of which is still not settled, is a third, partial transcription. It is brich, "The Style all'antica: Imitation and Assimilation," in Norm and useful to consult the printed edition of Rubens's notebook: Rubens, Form: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance, London, 1966, 122ff.; Lee Theorie de la figure humaine (evaluated by Jaffe, I, 34). The value of the (as in n. 1), 11-12; R. Wittkower, "Imitation, Eclecticism, and Genius," Theorie de la figure humaine as evidence of Rubens's views cannot be in Aspects of the Eighteenth Century, ed. Earl R. Wasserman, Baltimore, fully determined until its contents are compared with those of the 1965, 143ff.; and Dempsey, 60ff. manuscript transcriptions of Rubens's theoretical notebook. Relevant passages of the Theorie de la figure humaine are presented here as perti- 7 First printed in De Piles, 139ff. Miiller Hofstede, 53, supposes that nent information rather than as supportive evidence. Rubens wrote the essay soon after his return to Antwerp in 1608. This content downloaded from 94.71.154.90 on Mon, 01 Feb 2021 11:33:27 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 230 THE ART BULLETIN JUNE 1982 VOLUME LXIV NUMBER 2 of stone.8 materials this distinction is easy to make; the form of the The artist must exercise his judgment first by dis- circle is apparent whether embodied in wood or bronze. tinguishing matter from form, stone from figure, and the But Aristotle admitted that "it is hard to effect this "necessity" (or nature) of the marble from the artifice with severance in thought. E.g., the form of man is always which it has been worked. Next, he must choose the best found in flesh and bones and parts of this kind ..."u To statues, "which are most useful, as the common ones are insist on the existence of form separate from matter in useless, even harmful ..." Failure to make these distinc- such cases "leads away from the truth and makes one sup- tions will result in figures that look like colored marble in- pose that man can possibly exist without his parts, as the stead of flesh and blood. Crudeness, rigidity, and affected circle can without the bronze. But the case is not similar; depictions of anatomy will draw the opprobrium of for an animal is something perceptible and it is not possi- nature, driving out those subtleties of shadow, luminosity, ble to define it without reference to movement.... "12 and movement which Rubens believed necessary for the Movement is understood here as the force that unites form painter's art.9 and matter. Nature and art are the most important movers: The distinctions of "matter from form," "stone from "Art is a principle of movement in something other than figure," and "the necessity of the marble from the artifice the thing moved, nature is a principle in the thing with which it has been worked," and the avoidance of the itself. ..."13 "accidents" of stone present in even the best sculptures The application of these ideas is clear in Rubens's essay rest, of course, on Aristotle's conception of being. All per- De Imitatione Statuarum. A work of art as an imitation of ceivable, concrete things are a union of form and matter: nature is produced by the artist's combination of the form "If then matter is one thing, form another, the compound of the thing imitated with some material at his disposal. of these a third, and both the matter and the form and the Where, as with a man or animal, the thing imitated is compound are substance, even the matter is in a sense defined by the union of a form and of a material always called part of a thing, while in a sense it is not, but only the particular to it, and that material is inaccessible to the art- elements of which the formula consists. E.g., ... the ist, the form will be affected by the "accidents" of the new bronze is a part of the concrete statue, but not of the statue material with which it is combined. Because the painter is as form."1o Further, the ability to distinguish form from better able to reproduce the "accidents" of flesh, Rubens matter is essential for the definition of anything: "For considered it essential for the imitative goal of the art that definition is of the universal and of the form.
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