Thursday, June 24, 2010

Rubens Ignatius Paintings

The artist Peter Paul Rubens has a few paintings which pertain to the life and person of St. Ignatius of Loyola, and of those of which I am familiar, these scenes and portraits capture some rather glorious chasubles -- chasubles of a style which, of recent, have seen something of a revival.

Here are two details which show such chasubles, noteworthy both for their artistic merit as paintings, as well as for the artistic merit of the vestments themselves.

Here, for example, is a detail taken from "The Vision of Saint Ignatius of Loyola" of 1616:


(Image source)


However, there is another example which I would particularly bring to your attention, namely, Rubens' "Saint Ignatius of Loyola", painted between 1620 and 1622. To view it, I would point you to the collections of the Norton Simon Museum which have provided an extremely high resolution version of the painting. (Click on it to keep zooming in.)

What is particularly spectacular in this latter example is the degree to which Rubens was able to capture the embroidery on the chasuble and how it would have played in the light. It also captures a simply spectacular vestment.

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