Книга «Питер Пауль Рубенс» из цикла «Картины художника в музеях СССР» - это иллюстрированный альбом на английском языке, выпущенный издательством «Аврора» в 1989 году, г. Ленинград. Со временем книга попала в разряд букинистических изданий, представляющих коллекционную ценность. Вниманию читателей представлены 96 полотен – в целостном и фрагментарном виде, а также история их создания.

Вступительная статья написана Марией Варшавской – одним из крупнейших в мире специалистов по фламандской живописи. Приводим отрывок из статьи, перевод выполнил Джон Кроуфут.

“ The great seventeenth-century Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens is known throughout the world. The importance of his work for the development of European culture is generally recognized. The perception of life that he revealed in his pictures is so fresh and vivid, fundamental human values are affirmed in them with such force that we look Rubens’ paintings as a living aesthetic phenomenon of our time as well.

In the course of the three centuries which have elapsed since the death of Rubens his artistic legacy, while not losing its immediate aesthetic outlook has been variously interpreted. The dominant aesthetic outlook has never been able to ignore his influence, but at each specific historical juncture it has sought to channel this influence in the direction it wishes.

Rubens the man and his art are far more complex than was appreciated before. We now have an incomparably wider viewer of the artist’s capabilities, and see a more varied range of sources from which he drew inspiration and the variety of his artistic tastes.

At times the decisive impulse in the perception and interpretation of the artist’s legacy has been provided by those features which people desired to see in his works, or those they feared to find there. Rubens’ creative activities were so intertwined with the world he lived in that the detachment necessary for an overall assessment of his role and importance was not possible during his lifetime.

MARIA VASHAVSKAYA