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Peter Paul Rubens
Head of a Young Man, 1601-1602
Oil on paper, mounted on panel
34.9 cm x 23.4 cm (13 3/4 in. x 9 3/16 in.)
The Suida-Manning Collection
The technique of drawing in oil on paper developed in the late sixteenth century and was favored by Venetian artists. The oil sketch became Rubens's preferred method for anticipating the pictorial character of individual motifs and entire compositions. An homage to Caravaggio in type and basic conception, this study captures the emphatic physicality, momentary reaction, and intense psychology of a live model. This head was first utilized for the figure of a page in The Mocking of Christ, one of three paintings for the Roman church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme that were Rubens's first public commission. Probably based upon this very study, the same head of a youth would reappear in at least four subsequent works by the artist. This is one of the earliest, most powerful, and evidently most useful of all the oil sketches. If not the creator of Baroque style, Rubens gave it the most complete expression. In all subjects, whether of vast or intimate scale, his painting is predicated upon rhythmic organization of composition, dynamic construction of form, and vibrant handling. In his early Italian works, these tendencies were somewhat contained by a Caravaggesque concern with plasticity and stability. After his return to Antwerp in 1608, his paintings would have increasingly free and grand expression, describing all reality in terms of physical movement and temporal change. And yet, his early and thorough assimilation of classical style meant that this vision never overwhelmed the sense of an underlying order and ethos.