PITTSBURGH — For sheer theatricality, it's hard to top Rubens: radiant, big bodies bouncing around; religious fervor; graphic beatings and battles.
Take the brush out of the Baroque, though, and you might lose some of the appeal.
A show that opened today at the Frick Art Museum does exactly that, stripping the 17th-century Flemish masters of their luminescent colors and dizzying ornamentation in a series of 100 drawings. What is lost in impact is made up for in accessibility, letting the viewer focus on the subject and the artists in the process of creation.
From whimsical peasant scenes to carefully worked nudes and portraits to tumultuous sketches of gore to violent retellings of religious episodes, "Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck and their Circle: Flemish Master Drawings From the Museum Boikmans Van Beuningen" is a dash through the old masters as they refine their vision.
"We just really couldn't pass this up," Sarah Hall, the museum's registrar, said of the show. "I think of this as very dramatic and vibrant."
The real star of the show is Rubens, whose chalk and pen works seem to follow no discernible pattern, ranging from vague outlines of scenes to tight-handed copies of his predecessors. Carefully controlled, luminous portraits and waves of violence are juxtaposed as multiple scenes flow together, the product of an exuberant hand. In "The Martyrdom of Two Saints," for example, there is little more than a roughed out design for a swirling episode. A woman at the center of the drawing has her hair yanked back, the foot of one of her attackers square in her belly. Below her, a man is being savagely turned and beaten.
Then, there is "The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew." From a distance, you'd hardly know it was a drawing at all, but, as you approach, a few brown lines appear, the outlines of heads, the vague curves of a horse, the sight of a man stretched in the shape of a cross, pleading to God. It is almost as if Rubens needed no more inspiration for the eventual painting as he went along — and stopped, knowing where he was headed.
One crucifixion is a complete, finished work. In it, a lithe, tortured Christ is on the cross, encircled by angels beating at death and devils in the hell fire and smoke behind him.
Often, when viewing a Rubens, you can find more and more detail, the deeper you go. "This is the first record of inspiration," said Hall. --> In the pieces by Jacob Jordaens, the artist seems to concentrate less on the fully developed features of his subjects and more on the compositions themselves — the play of light, the eventual color schemes. But there is a vibrancy to works such as "The King Drinks," a peasant banquet scene crowded with revelry.
Perhaps most impressive, however, are the anatomical studies, highlighted by Rubens' "Kneeling Man, Seen From Behind." A drawing preparatory to other works, the bold musculature of the man is stunning, the classical proportions inspiring a weightiness often confined to sculpture. The technique is echoed in Van Dyck's "Seated Man, Leaning Backwards," the muscled figure awkwardly balancing himself, seemingly ready to topple back out of the drawing.
Hall said she believes the show will give viewers more insight into the masters.
"Drawing is really something people understand. Painting is technique — it's more elusive. But people understand drawing," she said. "It touches people in a much different way."
"Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck and their Circle," with free admission, runs through June 2.