A favourite metaphor in Rubens' time was that a painter with considerable artistic gifts 'marries' Pictura, the goddess of painting and creative inspiration. Hence the painter's wife was identified with the goddess of painting and inspiration, and can be viewed as a personification of Pictura in many marriage and family portraits.
The theme became further domesticated and broadened out to include the children resulting from the marriage to Pictura: an artist's works were often spoken of as his 'children', the fruit of his marriage to inspiration, and themselves became a source of new creativity.
Rubens' portraits of Brueghel, and of his own family, are part of this tradition. from A&A Art + Architecture.
Comments