Humanities series «Pedro Pablo Rubens, Francisco Calvo Serraller lecture series»

Pedro Pablo Rubens was not only the most celebrated painter of his time: he was a cultural phenomenon, a Renaissance mind caught in the midst of the Baroque. Diplomat, polyglot, thinker and prolific artist, his life seems made for excess. From his Antwerp workshop to the salons of the Spanish court, through commissions in Paris and London, Rubens was the invisible thread connecting art with politics, the classical past with Europe's pictorial future.

This lecture series offers more than an art-history lesson: it is an invitation to discover the complete figure of Rubens. Not only the painter of full-bodied figures and epic scenes, but also the man who dreamed of a Europe at peace while writing letters in Latin and sketching ancient gods.

Through a critical, cross-cutting perspective, his aesthetic obsessions, his role as a collector, his passion for classical sculpture and his unique ability to transform vital energy into painting will be explored. Because in Rubens everything vibrates: flesh, colour, politics and life.