Professor David Howarth

Inaugural lecture of Professor David Howarth, 10 May 2011.

Event details

Lecture title: "Rubens and the Art of Friendship"

Date: 10 May 2011, 5.15pm

Venue: Lecture Theatre 183, Old College

Lecture abstract

Peter Paul Rubens was an enormously successful painter who worked for the Catholic church in Europe, and the courts of Brussels, Madrid, Paris and London, between 1600-1640.

It will be suggested that a neglected explanation for how Rubens became the first "European painter" was his genius for friendship. Through the warmth of personal contacts and the strategic cultivation of friendships with the great if not the good, Rubens hugely enhanced his profile. A gift for making himself genial was central to his acquisition of key commissions during the early decades of the seventeenth century.

How Rubens nurtured these friendship networks, and what they meant to his career and outlook on life, will be examined through his letters and paintings.

Lecture video