Points to Ponder, Rubens Galleries

Rubens, a great Calvinist Painter?

One of these days I am going to write an article about WHAT IF...... , larded with plenty of pics.

It will be about P.P. Rubens' father Jan and his love (lust) affair with Anna of Saxony (2nd wife of Prince Willem of Orange).

If Jan Rubens hadn't said to his wife on those cold German winter nights: "Sorry dear, I have to work late at the office again".

If he had kept "it" in his pants, then there would be no love child, no furious Prince Willem, no jail time for Jan, no begging, no buying his freedom, no return to Belgium and no converting to Catholicism for Mum and the 2 kids.

Jan was a strict Calvinist and had his sons baptised as Calvinist in Germany.

Peter Paul Rubens might still have become a painter, but there were no great teachers in Germany at that time. Prince Maurits might have sent him to Holland to learn. He certainly would not have gone to Italy to study. Calvinists did not go to "papal" Italy (the word "paaps" (papal) is still used as a derogatory word by some in Holland today.

He might still have become a great painter, but no Counter-Reformatiom paintings. No Rubens' grandiose baroque. No Triumph of the Eucharist cartoons. No John Ringling getting excited and "must have" them. No Ringling Museum Gallery 1 and 2 as it is. Probably No Pausias and Glycera, No flight of Lot, No Achillis, No Ferdinant. Rubens would not have gone to Spain twice, would not have met Velasquez, Velazques would probably not have changed his portrait of Phillip IV by adding armor and the hat with the pearl. No story on the Peregrina pearl and Elizabeth Taylor. No Willem as docent. Not this website. You would not be reading these words.

When I write it, the tile will probably be: