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afterRubens.org > The debate so far > Discussion board |
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| Discussion Board (most recommended first) |
Part of what makes the Samson and Delilah so interesting as a work of art is the extreme disparity in the response it evokes from people - both those who have seen it perhaps just once, as well as scholars who may have studied it for half a lifetime.
Below you will find comments both for and against the attribution, as well as more general observations that visitors to the site have sent in. Please recommend the comments you find most interesting and let us know how you see it too.
You are viewing comments ordered by the number of reader recommendations they have recieved; you can also order them chronologically with the most recent first.
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Cutting off the toes of a hero's foot is a clear sign that this painting is not the work of a master. Rubens was a great respecter of naked feet and I am shocked that the National Gallery can hang a painting by someone who has such contempt for the sensitivities of modern, art-loving, pediphiles.
Terry Gilliam, Filmmaker, London, UK
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As a painter I have been fascinated for more that thirty years by the phenomenon that is Rubens. I admit that I have not read all the books and documents that have been written on Rubens. Rather than spending endless hours reading all these publications, I have concentrated my energy directly on his paintings. I have visited all the museums in the world exhibiting important Rubens paintings, and I have learned that looking at Rubens’ work is infinitely more important than reading all the books written about him and his work.
My own book "Rubens, Prophet of Modern Art", published in 1984, represents a painter’s view on this unique Master. I intended it as an complementary addition to the numerous studies and books written by art historians. Based on this book I also wrote a screenplay for an art film on Rubens (2 x 55 min), which was broadcast by Flemish television (BRTN) in 1991 and has been awarded numerous international prizes.
These years of personal study of the paintings themselves have trained my eye more and more in recognising his authentic brushstroke. No other painter has such a powerful brushstroke and its power is intensified further still by the volcanic energy of his compositions. Time and again, his composition is “well-ordered, painted with an unbridled fantasy” (Frans Baudouin). These characteristics are also omnipresent in his oil-sketches – indeed I believe that close study of the oil-sketches offers a key to the genius of his large format paintings and even, ultimately, to questions of attribution.
A trained eye, acquainted with the oeuvre of the great master can see that the Samson and Delilah is clearly a copy (an accurate copy, mind you) from the original by Rubens. But however accurate or authentic it may seem, what makes Rubens unique and the thing that constitutes his signature, namely his powerful brushstroke, is just not present.
With great precision this study juxtaposes images of details from paintings from the real Rubens and details from this copy. The result of these comparisons is abundantly clear: not only Rubens’ unique brushstroke, but also the ‘skin’ and ‘coating’ of this brushstroke, are absent in the Samson and Delilah. They differ to such an extent with the authentic Rubens that one must be blind – whether purposefully or not – not to discern the differences.
Will experts and connoisseurs change their views after comparing them? I fear not, and the reasons are many. Some of them will base their interpretation – in good faith – on the judgment of their own eye as it has been trained, while others will simply put commercial considerations above the truth.
Harold Van de Perre, Painter, Writer & Filmmaker, Antwerp, Belgium
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Congratulations for the taste that went into the design of your site and for the erudition behind the taste.
You have proven, to my satisfaction at least, that the painting is a fake and that the National Gallery should not display it as a genuine, hand-painted oil painting by the Master himself. No doubt, it would please you if the National Gallery acknowledged the error of its ways and took down the painting forthwith. But this will not happen any time soon.
What is at stake here has nothing to do either with authenticity or provenance. We are talking about large amounts of cash paid for the painting, large commissions, the reputation of authenticators, the vanity of Trustees, and the inability of Directors to admit that they’ve been taken in. Consequently, despite your justified indignation, the painting will stay where it is. Countless visitors to the National Gallery will glance at it for five seconds and reassure themselves they’ve seen still another Rubens. Such is the habit of most visitors in all art galleries. They look without seeing. Consequently, they doesn’t care one way or the other about whatever it is they may be looking at.
The few who do pay attention to whatever they’re looking at, are creatures from a different planet. They don’t visit museums and art galleries because they’ve got nothing better to do this afternoon. They go there because they crave the company of their betters. Naturally, not wishing to lose face, they do homework before going in. They read biographies, and monographs, and dissertations, and convoluted arguments about obscure technical issues related to the items they propose to feast their eyes upon. Some of them are sufficiently perverse to know the difference between iconography and iconology. Some feel as strongly about disegno as others feel about colore. In short, the extra-terrestrial minority does not speak the same language as the average tourist, the average art historian, the average Museum Trustee, and the average Museum Director.
Tourists look at works of art because they’ve been told to. Art historians because it’s their job. Museum Trustees because they’re stock-brokers and wish to be mistaken as sensitive. Museum Directors because they want a knighthood. Extra-terrestrials look at works of art because, if they don’t, their soul will wither and die.
It seems that this site has been put together by outraged extra-terrestrials hoping to communicate with members of their tribe. Well then! Message received!
Basil Coukis, Nashua, NH, USA
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The evidence is outstanding that this is not a Rubens orginal. I will be using this in art history. Thank you!
Jane E. Smith, teacher, Corona, CA, USA
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Clearly a copy and an insult to Rubens. A clever piece of subterfuge, a later slick copy of a lost original known to exist through the Matham engraving and Francken image. The composition is loosely based on these 2 images and the imagery crudely poached from other early works by Rubens. Very feeble in execution and fails on all comparisons with genuine early works by Rubens(draughtmanship, brushwork, colour, craquelure, chiarascuro etc).
The National Gallery cannot admit its mistake because those involved in the acquisition are still active. Their efforts to prove the picture is genuine such as the Technical Bulletin, the Apollo Magazine article and the current exhibition are not convincing. This picture will eventually be relegated to the basement, it is just a question of when. The National Gallery buy very well on the whole but, as with every collector and every other museum mistakes happen.
The only interesting question in all this is whether the National Gallery have any private doubts or, more worringly, actually believe this picture is autograph.
Ivan Lindsay, Art Dealer, London, UK
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I'm not sure I agree with all the criticisms of the piece used in making the case that it is not a genuine Rubens. Much of the critique of the head modeling and skin texture mysifies me..no matter who painted these figures, he did a skillful job. The "waxiness" in the face of the old woman is attributable to the extreme lighting; the supposed crudity in the depiction of the ear is anything but - the ear displays excellent anatomical modeling, even if its paintstrokes are not overwhelmingly subtle. As a fan of Rubens, I can see no lack of anatomical ability on display in the main figures of this painting. It is simply painted in a slightly different lighting than most of Rubens' works.
That being said, there are two compelling aspects that give the painting away as the work of another artist--the cut-off toes and the crude statue in the background. I agree that these are telltale signs.
Rubens would never have cut off the feet of his protagonist..it wasn't just that Rubens enjoyed painting feet, but it's simply bad figure painting composition. In a historical or mythological painting one does not cut off the body parts of the hero. The entire body should be shown.
And the statue on the wall simply could not have been painted by Rubens. It isn't just that it's painted badly--which it undeniably is. It also depicts a raw-boned, small-waisted female figure that Rubens would never have idealized in a work of art.
The same is true, to a slightly lesser degree, of Delilah herself. Her lanky height and musculature are not a problem, but her feet are bony (by Rubens' standards). She also lacks a double chin, even though her head is bent in a position that would create a roll of flesh on a relatively slender face. And the beauties in Rubens' works (-indeed, in the works of most pre-20th Century artists) did not have slender faces. Rubens would never have missed the opportunity to give his Biblical seductress a fashionable Baroque double chin.
Also, consider Delilah's hand. Her hand is thick and muscular--it is the hand of a laborer, not a 17th century female prototype. Rubens would never have painted a female hand that looks like that. He would have either made the hand lilting and slender-fingered (as in his famous portraits of Helene Fourment) or he would have made the hand chubby and dimpled (as he often did when he let his sexual preferences dominate a human figure).
The painting is not by Peter Paul Rubens.
It may, however, have been sketched by him and painted by a lesser apprentice in his own studio. Or it could be the forgery of a modern artist.
Kevin Tuma, artist/cartoonist, Hillsboro, Texas, USA
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Of course it is difficult to determine the true gradations of color and shadow from a photo measuring about 3" by 3", but from the photo provided, the painting seems to lack the gradations of color and tone, of light and shadow (or the absence of light) that characterize the paintings of Rubens. The overall impression of the photo posted here is that it is too light and too lacking in detail, too lacking in the intriguing, varying shadows that pull normally pull one into his paintings. There is too much contrast overall, no play between light and shadow. However, again, it must be noted that it is difficult to make a determination without having seen the original up close.
Tatiana, Professor , Moscow, Russia
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I had a different experience at first from some others who have commented here. Superficial examination of the National Gallery painting on my computer screen and an agreeable willingness to be persuaded made me think the painting might be okay, although I did quickly notice the disproportionate hands and arms, the odd angle of Delilah's head, and the way Samson's arms seems to dangle disconnectedly from anything else in the painting, much less Delilah's leg where it supposedly rests.
Since my college days I have felt that we are done an injustice by only studying the masterpieces, whether of literature, painting or some other field. One gets accustomed to excellence and loses one's appreciation for what lies behind the beautiful surfaces in terms of work, learning, technique... It is the struggle to achieve something worthwhile that can be most instructive to the student, whether experienced vicariously or by direct means.
Therefore, as a sometime student of art, I am profoundly grateful to have stumbled upon your detailed and incisive comparison of the various works attributed to Rubens. I am even grateful for the existance of the forgery itself, whether it was intended as such or merely an imitation by an admiring, aspiring painter of the distant past. Its valiant attempt at greatness makes the brilliance of Rubens sparkle in its dull light and what's more, now I really understand. I plan to recommend the site to my friends and family as a crash course in painterly technique, a "what to look for" when visiting museums.
Margaret Wolfe-Roberts, mother, Spanish interpreter, Oxford, U.K.
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Well though I am not a learned student of art I enjoy a GOOD and authentic painting.
Through your evidence I believe that the national gallery should go out and find the REAL "Samson and Delilah ."
The brushstrokes as you stated were totally inconsistent with Rubens style as well as the detail of his former works.
So all and all it looks to me that the painting should be returned to whomever the National Gallery bought it and ask for their monies returned without delay. In other words, given your evidence, the painting taking up that wall space should be used as a place mat for swine food.
Bart Brewer
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Looks like a victorian pre-raphaelite work
Richard King, Geologist, East Sussex, England
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