A new title in the successful Lives of the Artists series, which offers illuminating, and often intimate, accounts of iconic artists as viewed by their contemporaries. The enormous talent, range, and intellect of Flemish Baroque artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) had an immediate impact on his contemporaries and changed international perceptions about painting and painters. Lives of Rubens assembles three early biographies that illuminate this impact: rival artist Giovanni Baglione writes about Rubens’s works for the churches of Rome; Joachim von Sandrart demonstrates the highly favorable contemporary public opinion of Rubens; and painter and critic Roger de Piles staunchly defends Rubens’s work in response to criticism by the French Academy.