Stormy Landscape

Late in his life, Rubens took up landscape painting with renewed passion. This example shows his characteristic concern with effects of light and weather, and with the interconnected stuff of our world, earth, water and air. It is painted densely, as if Rubens aimed to depict every detail with dabs and glides of his brush. Imagine the artist caught between his sensitivity to the natural world and his fascination with the descriptive power of the slightest movements of his hand, as he struggled to capture the world on this small panel.