Tag: Rubens

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Graphite Drawing After Peter Paul Rubens

Drawing of Young Woman with Folded Hands in Graphite Pencil

Alright, so it has been a while since I have posted anything. I do have lots of things to post. I have been making things but not posting those things. I think you get the idea. I think it is in part because I feel like no one will ever read this nonsense. But, as a wise man or wise woman or perhaps they were just a regular man, woman, or non-binary person said, “Pretend like your work matters.” So here is another post of a drawing copied from an old master for all of my imaginary friends to see. I’m now writing with the aid of the Grammarly software program, so if the quality of the writing is improved, you can thank Grammarly for that.

The drawing was done in graphite pencil and was copied from a work by Peter Paul Rubens, which was drawn in red chalk, black chalk, and heightened with white. My copy looks a lot sadder than the original in both the quality of the work and the expression of the young woman.

The original drawing by Peter Paul Rubens is currently in storage at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Netherlands. If you are like me, my condolences, and you are also wondering who is Boijmans Van Beuningen? Let’s ask Co-Pilot, the Microsoft Bing AI tool for writing stuff.

The name Boijmans Van Beuningen is derived from the two most important collectors: Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen 1. The museum houses a unique collection of paintings, sculptures, and everyday objects. It’s one of the oldest museums in the Netherlands, with a history dating back to 1849 when lawyer Boijmans left his art collection to the city of Rotterdam. In 1958, the museum acquired the Van Beuningen collection, adding to its rich heritage 2. The museum is currently closed for renovation and modernization, but you can explore thousands of artworks from its collection online 3. Additionally, Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, located next to the museum, is the world’s first publicly accessible art storage facility, where visitors can see over 154,000 objects housed in fourteen storage compartments with different climates4.

1 en.wikipedia.org, 2 artsandculture, 3 boijmans.nl, 4 boijmans.nl

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Graphite Pencil Drawing After Peter Paul Rubens

Graphite Drawing after Peter Paul Rubens

My next offering is a copy of drawing done by the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens sometime between 1617-18. The Victoria and Albert Museum where the drawing is displayed describes his work as a study of a nude man that is in a recumbent position and then trying to raise himself up and that seems to confirm what we see. But wait there’s more. There are also two studies of legs, that are in a kneeling position. The original drawing was done in black chalk with touches of white. I drew my copy with various graphite pencils. Actually just two different pencils, I just don’t remember which ones they were. One was light and the other dark. There are drawing pencil sets with several different types of pencils but I personally find it difficult to keep track of when to use each one so I usually only use two. I hope you had as much fun reading about pencils as I have writing about them. Just in case you can have too much of a good thing, let’s move on.

The original drawing was a study for the painting “Miracles of St. Francis Xavier”, which is a large altarpiece that is on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The subject in the drawing is not St. Francis but some ‘regular joe’ that is raising from his grave or perhaps he is being healed from the bubonic plague. Maybe he died of the plague and then St. Francis Xavier brought him back from the dead or he was still alive and want to sit up to see what all the commotion was about. Different websites have different ideas about what is actually going on with that pale fellow. But one thing we do now it that he is a man who is in the presence of St. Francis Xavier and that is something in and of itself.

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Graphite Drawing After Peter Paul Rubens

Jesus Christ drawing after Rubens

The next offering is a copy of a drawing by the Flemish master, Peter Paul Rubens. The original is in The British Museum. Not just any British Museum but THE British Museum. You know the one at the corner of Great Russell Street and Montague Place. It’s right next to the Arby’s. Rubens drew with black chalk added brown wash, and some white. It didn’t say what kind of brown wash or what kind of white. For my copy, I just used a pencil. A 6B I think. The ‘B’ means soft and the 6 is for the darkness. I’m almost positive I also used a 2H or I think 2B or may be not 2B that is the question. Moving on, the original drawing was or I should say still is, because I don’t think paper shrinks when it gets older is 527 millimeters tall and 370 millimeters wide. I drew mine on 9 inch by 12 inch paper. It would be very helpful to you the reader to stick with one unit of measurement. But then I would have to convert some of the measurements and even then you might not care anyway. So I’ll just leave it to you. I figure if you have enough free time and are so starved for entertainment that you are reading this blog then you probably might even stop and convert millimeters to inches and / or inches to millimeters. That was what would be considered a ‘run on’ sentence. It was also insulting to you the reader. I know you are an important person and your time is very valuable. You are also reading this post because you believe that I will discuss the great Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens. Here we go.

“That was an exhausting sentence.”

Rubens was born on June 28, 1577 in Siegen, Westphalia. Where is Siegen? According to Wikipedia, Siegen is a city in Germany, in the southern part of Westphalian of the North Rhine -​ Westphalia. It is located in the district of Siegen – Wittgenstein in the Arnsberg region. That was an exhausting sentence. I think I’m going to call it a day.

Click here to see the drawing of Jesus by Peter Paul Rubens.