Flemish Baroque painting in the context of "Still life"

Sir Peter Paul Rubens (/ˈruːbənz/ ROO-bənz; Dutch: [ˈpeːtər pʌul ˈrybəns]; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. His unique and immensely popular Baroque style emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality, which followed the immediate, dramatic artistic style promoted in the Counter-Reformation. Rubens was a painter producing altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. He was also a prolific designer of cartoons for the Flemish tapestry workshops and of frontispieces for the publishers in Antwerp.

Rubens was born and raised in the Holy Roman Empire (modern-day Germany) to parents who were refugees from Antwerp in the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) and moved to Antwerp at about 12. In addition to running a large workshop in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England. Rubens was a prolific artist. The catalogue of his works by Michael Jaffé lists 1,403 pieces, excluding numerous copies made in his workshop.

The Oranjezaal refers to a painted ballroom in the royal palace Huis ten Bosch in The Hague. It was once, together with its neighboring Chinese room, part of the first national museum of the Netherlands founded in 1800 called the Nationale Konst-Gallery. The supervisor Cornelis Sebille Roos appointed Jan Gerard Waldorp as the first custodian and curator to receive visitors (for 6 stuivers) and explain the collection.

The Oranjezaal or Orange room was commissioned upon the death of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange in 1647 and was built during the years 1648-1651 by Jacob van Campen under the direction of Constantijn Huygens and Amalia van Solms. The painters were chosen as the best of the Netherlands, north and south, who painted in the Baroque style of Rubens, and were mostly of the Catholic faith. Therefore the total of 31 paintings decorating the room from floor to ceiling, are rather more typical of Flemish Baroque painting than Dutch Golden Age painting. Over a century later the room became part of the first national museum of the Netherlands, but it is not normally open to the public.

A hierarchy of genres is any formalization which ranks different genres in an art form in terms of their prestige and cultural value.

In literature, the epic was considered the highest form, for the reason expressed by Samuel Johnson in his Life of John Milton: "By the general consent of criticks, the first praise of genius is due to the writer of an epick poem, as it requires an assemblage of all the powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions." Below that came lyric poetry, and comic poetry, with a similar ranking for drama. The novel took a long time to establish a firm place in the hierarchy, doing so only as belief in any systematic hierarchy of forms expired in the 19th century.

The National Museum in Warsaw (Polish: Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, MNW) is a national museum in Warsaw, one of the largest museums in Poland and the largest in the capital. It comprises a rich collection of ancient art (Egyptian, Greek, Roman), counting about 11,000 pieces, an extensive gallery of Polish painting since the 16th century and a collection of foreign painting (Italian, French, Flemish, Dutch, German and Russian) including some paintings from Adolf Hitler's private collection, ceded to the museum by the American authorities in post-war Germany. The museum is also home to numismatic collections, a gallery of applied arts and a department of oriental art, with the largest collection of Chinese art in Poland, comprising some 5,000 objects.

The museum boasts the Faras Gallery with Europe's largest collection of Nubian Christian art and the Gallery of Medieval Art with artefacts from all regions historically associated with Poland, supplemented by selected works created in other regions of Europe.

Flemish painting flourished from the early 15th century until the 17th century, gradually becoming distinct from the painting of the rest of the Low Countries, especially the modern Netherlands. In the early period, up to about 1520, the painting of the whole area is (especially in the Anglophone world) typically considered as a whole, as Early Netherlandish painting. This was dominated by the Flemish south, but painters from the north were also important. Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, of which Antwerp became the centre, covers the period up to about 1580 or later, by the end of which the north and south Netherlands had become politically separated. Flemish Baroque painting was especially important in the first half of the 17th century, dominated by Rubens.

In theory the term does not refer to modern Flanders but to the County of Flanders and neighbouring areas of the Low Countries such as the Tournaisis and Duchy of Brabant. However this distinction, well understood in modern Belgium, has always been disregarded by most foreign observers and writers. Flanders delivered the leading painters in Northern Europe and attracted many promising young painters from other countries. These painters were invited to work at foreign courts and had a Europe-wide influence. Since the end of the Napoleonic era, Flemish painters have again been contributing to a reputation that had been set by the Old Masters.

Jan Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Younger (/ˈbrɔɪɡəl/ BROY-gəl, US also /ˈbruːɡəl/ BROO-gəl; Dutch: [ˈjɑm ˈbrøːɣəl] ; 13 September 1601 – 1 September 1678) was a Flemish Baroque painter. He was the son of Jan Brueghel the Elder, and grandson of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, both prominent painters who contributed respectively to the development of Renaissance and Baroque painting in the Habsburg Netherlands. Taking over his father's workshop at an early age, he largely painted the same subjects as his father in a style which was similar to that of his father. He gradually was able to break away from his father's style by developing a broader, more painterly, and less structured manner of painting. He regularly collaborated with leading Flemish painters of his time.

Dutch art describes the history of visual arts in the Netherlands, after the United Provinces separated from Flanders. Earlier painting in the area is covered in Early Netherlandish painting and Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting.

Dutch Golden Age painting, spanning from about 1620 to 1680, was a distinct style and movement that evolved out of the Flemish Baroque tradition. It was a period of great artistic achievement in the Netherlands. There was a healthy artistic climate in Dutch cities during the seventeenth century. For example, between 1605 and 1635, over 100,000 paintings were produced in Haarlem. At that time, art ownership in the city was 25%, a record high. After the end of the Golden Age, production of paintings remained high, but ceased to influence the rest of Europe as strongly.

Spanish Baroque painting refers to the style of painting which developed in Spain throughout the 17th century and the first half of the 18th century. The style appeared in early 17th century paintings, and arose in response to Mannerist distortions and idealisation of beauty in excess, appearing in early 17th century paintings. Its main objective was, above all, to allow the viewer to easily understand the scenes depicted in the works through the use of realism, while also meeting the Catholic Church's demands for 'decorum' during the Counter-Reformation.

The naturalism typical of the Caravaggisti in Italy, and the dramatic illumination of Tenebrism that was introduced in Spain after 1610, would go on to shape the dominant style of painting in Spain in the first half of the 17th century. The style was later influenced by Flemish Baroque painting, as the Spanish Habsburgs ruled over an area of the Netherlands during this period. The arrival of Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens in Spain, who visited the country in 1603 and 1628, also had some influence Spanish painting. However, it was the profusion of his works, as well as those of his students, which would go on to have an even greater impact from 1638 onward. Ruben's influence was later combined with the technique used by Titian, which incorporated loose brushstrokes and broken contours; the fusion of these influences was key to the creation of the works of Diego Velázquez, the most prestigious artist of the period.