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Peter Paul Rubens' gifts as an artist were as comprehensive as they were supreme. A prolific painter of illimitable resource and invention, he was a master of intellect and emotion, figure and form, color and sweep. In all his artistic endeavors, he proved himself the true heir of Renaissance art of both the North and the South, inspired by-and assimilating — the best of both. Yet he was very much a man of his time and in retrospect the most powerful, exuberant and sensuous exponent of the Baroque style of painting. His extraordinary drawings reflect all of these qualities but color, and in them the viewer can clearly perceive — and enjoy at leisure — the awesome range of Rubens' genius. In this superb collection of 44 of his choicest drawings are deeply probing portraits and powerful religious and mythical scenes. His self-portrait, full of opulent and flowing forms, reaches out to us with a startling, penetrating gaze. His individual portraits of a young girl and of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, reveal in both instances a touching sensitivity mixed with aristocratic self-possession.
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