The 2011 Rubenianum Quarterly 2 Reflections on completing part XXVI What’s in a name? of the Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard It all began in 1959: in order to promote the It’s interesting to reflect on the three-quarters of a million words that make up my study of the Flemish art of the age of Bruegel contribution to the Corpus Rubenianum. How did I manage to write so much and was to Rubens, the initiative was taken to found it necessary? The first volume in the series, published in 1968, is a model of elegant a specialized study centre, which was first concision by comparison. I’m sure that its author, John Rupert Martin, would – were called the Nationaal Centrum voor de he still alive – find my approach excessive and he could well be right. Martin would Plastische Kunsten van de 16e en de 17e still recognize the Corpus that he launched in 1968, and yet the academic world that it Eeuw, and later changed to Centrum voor now inhabits is a very different one, and this is not just because the Rubens literature de Vlaamse Kunst van de 16e en de 17e has grown at a frightening rate. If I look back to some admired ‘complete catalogues’ published in the 1950s and 1960s they no longer seem to solve the problems of Eeuw. Though shorter, the name remained attribution that they address and are more like anthologies of the authors’ favourite such an unwieldy mouthful that everyone works. In those innocent decades, nobody needed to explain what they were doing simply referred to the ‘Centrum’. because it was thought to be self-evident. From the beginning the ‘Centrum’ resided I recently had an interesting email conversation with a distinguished Rubens scholar in the Rubenianum, the art history library who said that, to her mind, the attribution of an artist’s work comes first and it’s only and documentation centre of the City of afterwards that the history of connoisseurship and criticism needs to be considered. Antwerp, and naturally the two organizations I differ. I think attributions aren’t made in a historical or critical vacuum. Because of worked in close collaboration. This was this, my Corpus entries are more focused on the early literature and the descriptions especially the case when, in 1963, the City found in the first sale catalogues than has been usual in previous volumes. I find that early opinions on authorship are often refreshingly unexpected, and I think the acquired the rich documentation of Ludwig language used in these texts is itself informative. Of course, from the outset Corpus Burchard and the ‘Centrum’ took it upon 097629-cover3-VOL-I 12-05-2011 07:24 Pagina 1 authors have taken the early literature of connoisseurship into account, reflecting itself to publish the Corpus Rubenianum Burchard’s own meticulous respect for the sources. J. R. Martin, for example, made Ludwig Burchard. But the name continued use of 18th-century texts on his topic, but he wasn’t much interested in the Rubens to be somewhat of a problem. While we literature before Rooses (1886–92). refer to ourselves as the ‘Centrum’, to the CORPUS RUBENIANUM The Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard CORPUS By a strange coincidence, the Rembrandt Research Project was setCORPUS up in the RUBENIANUM LUDWIG BURCHARD RUBENIANUM LUDWIG BURCHARD rest of the world we are simply ‘those at the is divided into the following twenty-nine parts: L. BURCHARD CORPUS RUBENIANUM same year as Martin’s publication, 1968. Although the RRP was better funded, and Rubenianum’. With the recent creation of This complete edition of the works of Rubens dis- PART XXVI (2) cusses and reproduces all his paintings, sketches and XXVI (2) in some ways far more adventurous in its methodology, it has foundered, while the This complete edition of the works of Rubens discuss- I. THE CEILING PAINTINGS FOR THE JESUIT CHURCH IN ANTWERP* LUDWIG BURCHARD the Rubenianum Fund, the R-word acquired es and reproduces all his paintings, sketches and COPIES AND ADAPTATIONS FROM II. THE EUCHARIST SERIES* drawings, as well as the works designed by him, tap- Rubens Corpus is set fair to reach completion. It seems that the modelRENAISSANCE of the AND single- LATER ARTISTS estries, sculpture, architecture, ... The Corpus is based III. THE OLD TESTAMENT* a new, assertive buzz, all the more so since the on the material assembled over several decades by IV. THE HOLY TRINITY, THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN, MADONNAS, THE HOLY FAMILY authored monograph has proved more durable than the team. Nevertheless, the Ludwig Burchard and handed over to the city of PART XXVI ITALIAN ARTISTS Antwerp after his death in 1960. It has been consider- V. THE LIFE OF CHRIST BEFORE THE PASSION JEREMY WOOD ‘Centrum’ and the Rubenianum joined forces ably enlarged by the joined efforts of the Centrum VI. THE PASSION OF CHRIST* exhaustive approach of the voor de Vlaamse Kunst van de 16de en de 17de Eeuw ITALIAN and the Rubenianum. VII. THE LIFE OF CHRIST AFTER THE PASSION* RRP – although ultimately to produce the Rubenianum Quarterly and VIII. SAINTS* ARTISTS The Corpus consists of twenty-nine parts, each of This section of the Corpus Rubenianum is concerned IX. THE DECORATION OF THE TORRE DE LA PARADA* which deals with a particular commission or group of self-defeatingwith Rubens’s – has remarkable set new study of past art as establish the very successful Rubenianum subjects. Each part is written by a well-known Rubens X. THE ACHILLES SERIES* revealed by his numerous copies and adaptations scholar and incorporates the material accumulated by III. XI. MYTHOLOGICAL SUBJECTS standards fromin cataloguingItalian sources. The material to is so extensive Ludwig Burchard with the result of his or her own ARTISTS Lectures. So, to be in tune with the rest of the studies. The Corpus aims in this way to embody all XII. ALLEGORIES AND SUBJECTS FROM LITERATURE that it has been divided into three separate volumes WORKING IN present-day knowledge of the work of Rubens. XIII. SUBJECTS FROM HISTORY (1)*, (2) & (3) which the coveringCorpus (I) Raphael must and his surely School, (II) Titian and R-world, we too decided to rename our centre, CENTRAL North Italian artists, and (III) artists who worked in The Corpus is sponsored by the City of Antwerp and XIV. THE MARIA DE’MEDICI AND HENRY IV SERIES respond. CreditCentral Italy must as well as inbe France. given is published under the patronage of HSH Prince Hans XV. THE CEILING DECORATION OF THE BANQUETING HALL* ITALY AND Rubens’s study of the Cinquecento lasted and call it the ‘Centrum Rubenianum’. As Adam II of Liechtenstein and the International Union FRANCE of Academies (UAI).t XVI. THE DECORATIONS FOR THE POMPA INTROITUS FERDINANDI* to the RRPthroughout for reassessing his life and was not just the focus of his XVII. GENRE SCENES early years in Antwerp when he learned his craft a foundation, with members and a board, XVIII. LANDSCAPES AND HUNTING SCENES (1)* & (2)* the questionsand often that used prints need and copy to drawings be as mod- els. Perhaps surprisingly Rubens made relatively XIX. PORTRAITS (1)*, (2)*, (3) & (4) our legal status is different from that of the JEREMY few drawings directly from paintings while in Italy “Tatsächlich war Burchard der größte Kenner von XX. STUDY HEADS AND ANATOMICAL STUDIES asked in such an enterprise, WOOD between 1600 and 1608, although some survive Rubens’ Werken und es ist sehr zu bedauern daß er seine XXI. BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS AND TITLE-PAGES* Rubenianum proper, which is administered Arbeit nicht abzuschließen vermochte. and, indeed,after whatfrescoes that it hecan saw onhope his travels. Instead, Es ist daher eine schöne und wohlverdiente Geste, XXII. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE (1)*, (2) & (3) Rubens was a rapacious collector of Italian draw- daß sein Name nun sozusagen als der eines XXIII. COPIES AFTER THE ANTIQUE* ings, both working studies and journeyman by the City of Antwerp. So in-house we Schirmherrn für immer mit dem to achieve. records. He kept them in his cabinet in Antwerp, Corpus Rubenianum verbunden bleibt.” XXIV. THE COSTUME BOOK* and took them out from time to time to retouch and XXV. THE THEORETICAL NOTEBOOK I will continue to refer to ourselves as the (Julius S. Held, in Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 1969) rework them so that they became his own. By this XXVI. COPIES AND ADAPTATIONS FROM RENAISSANCE AND LATER ARTISTS (1)* & (2)* means he was able to return to the art of Italy long XXVII. WORKS IN COLLABORATION Jeremy Woodafter he had left that country. ‘Centrum’, but do please go on calling us XXVIII. DRAWINGS NOT RELATED TO THE ABOVE SUBJECTS Rubens’s most important painted copies were XXIX. ADDENDA, CORRIGENDA AND INDEXES also made late in his career, in 1628-30 when he had ‘those at the Rubenianum’. travelled to Madrid and London and was in his “This series is one of the greatest collaborative art-historical enterprises of the late twentieth century.” fifties, a point when many artists would have Rubens afterthought Michelangelo, they no longer needed to study. These (J. Douglas Stewart, in Revue d’art canadienne, 1988) , drawing.replicas Paris, may have Fondation been made because he could not Arnout Balis Night buy the originals for his collection, but they also Custodia, Collectionreveal the thoroughness Frits Lugt of his dialogue with Italian art. In total, this material amounts to the largest Chairman of the Centrum Rubenianum group of painted and drawn copies by any late “As usual, the volume is very fully illustrated, Renaissance painter. but with the addition for the first time in a volume of the Corpus Rubenianum, of colour reproductions.” JEREMY WOOD (Christopher White, in Newsletter Historians of Netherlandish Art, 2006) * Already published ISBN 978-1-905375-79-0 COPIES AND ADAPTATIONS FROM RENAISSANCE AND LATER ARTISTS ITALIAN ARTISTS 9 781905 375790 III.