Rubens is a titan of Western art. The task of restoring his paintings is equally gigantic

Independent

31-01-2025

When an iconic painting is in need of restoration, it is usually taken to a studio to be worked on in seclusion.
In the case of a massive Peter Paul Rubens masterpiece in the artist's Belgian hometown, the studio had to be taken to the painting. In the largest room of Antwerp 's Royal Fine Arts Museum, the restorers have the eyes of visitors on their backs and — sometimes — criticism ringing in their ears.
At 6 meters (19.6 feet), the 'Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints,' a lush swirl of flesh, fabric and drapes, stands taller than an adult giraffe. A team of six restorers is poring over it for a two-year cleanup, which is scheduled to end this fall. Compare that to Rubens himself, who could put paint to canvas on such a massive work in only a few weeks.
No wonder such panache, the grand gesture in a simple brushstroke, left all in awe — then and now. Rubens, perhaps Antwerp's most famous son, painted the work in 1628 in the studio of his house in the city.
'It's such a flamboyant painter that, yeah, we love it,' said Ellen Keppens, grasping for the proper effusive words. Together with her twin sister, Jill, Ellen is leading an international team of six women restorers.
On a recent morning, they were applying undertones to the Baroque masterpiece, sometimes crawling along the wood-paneled floor to apply a touch here or there. Later, they had to crouch under a metal staircase before heading up to the top corner for another dab of retouching there. Who ever said art restoration was not physical labor?
'Like our colleague says, she's become really good at yoga,' said Keppens of a team member. 'You notice that you can bend in all kind of angles in front of a painting.' When a crick in her neck gets too bad, she can just walk to the computer desk next to the painting for some administrative work.
She'd better not look too far to her left down the room known as the Rubens gallery. At the other end stands another iconic work of the master, equally daunting and gigantic, and also badly in need of restoration: 'The Adoration of the Magi.'
Koen Bulckens, the curator of the Baroque section at the museum, knows the challenges ahead.
'We will use this studio now for the treatment of this work,' he said, looking at the Madonna, the brightness of the original paint revealed after the painstaking removal of aged varnish. Then, he said, comes "another work, which is the 'Adoration of the Magi.'"
And the clock is ticking. 'The project is set to end in 2027, which will be the 450th anniversary of Rubens' birth. So it will be a jubilee year," Bulckens said.
As with so many centuries-old paintings, the biggest problems are old varnish and bad previous restorations.
'This work was covered by a very exceptionally, I must say, thick and yellow varnish which distorted on the one hand the colors, but on the other hand also the brushwork, which had become impossible to see,' said Bulckens.
In addition, two paintings hanging on either side of the Madonna had been cleaned 35 years ago, leaving the Rubens in the middle looking jaundiced. 'It was obvious how yellow it looked. You can play with the museum light to make it a bit bluer, but that was really not a definitive solution,' he said.
Removing the varnish, though, left the painted surface with a dull complexion. Restorers working in a studio know the removal is part of the process and the final result will only look more splendid later. At the museum itself, some visitors were convinced the beloved painting was being ruined and, despite the ample "do not disturb" signs, let their concerns be known.
'Some absolutely we don't realize it. And then they think, like, was it a good idea? Yes, of course it was a good idea,' said Keppens. 'We know what's going to happen next,' once new varnish and touches are applied.
'Sometimes you have a moment to explain to visitors, but often we are just working and, yeah, but then we hear the comments in the background, of course,' Keppens said.
Standing up for the master — and for their own work — now comes naturally. After dealing with Rubens, month in and month out, 'he is a very large part of our lives.'