Genius or inventiveness? While it may be foreign to the modern understanding that associates art with individualism, subjectivity, and originality, in the seventeenth century it was common practice for artists to work together to create masterpieces.

Due to the development of subjects such as landscape, genre, and still life, painting in the Netherlands in the period just after 1500 was characterized by specialists who, aiming for the highest artistic perfection, focused on certain areas. It was only logical for them to join forces to pool their talents in spectacular images and create great art together.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625) collaborated several times. Both were recognized as masters in their fi elds: Rubens, one of the most famous painters of his era, was known for his monumental history paintings with large fi gures, while Brueghel was celebrated for his highly detailed landscapes with abundant staffage, along with his fl ower and animal still lifes.

The Madonna in a Garland of Flowers is an excellent example of the highest level of this type of collaboration: Rubens painted Mary, Jesus, and the circle of putti, while Brueghel executed the opulent garland of flowers.

The composition reflects religious tradition: to this day, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, paintings of Mary and saints are richly decorated as a gesture of reverence. The frontal view of the Christ Child, presented to encourage adoration, manifests Rubens’s particular ability to convey religious messages in a lively and vivid manner. Viewers are confronted with the nude figure of Christ in all his vulnerability; this depiction as a child foreshadows his later death on the cross. Presented both as a loving mother and an instrument of God, Mary’s thoughtful gaze reveals her anticipation of her son’s untimely death. The putti, diligently hanging the black frame with the image of the Madonna and the garland on a cartouche, exude joy and enthusiasm — they are to convey to worshippers that loving attention and the contemplation of God’s creation will later lead to redemption.

The magnificent garland of flowers, which seems practically three-dimensional, contributes to the vivid impression. True to nature, Brueghel depicted the flowers in radiant colors and added tiny insects that crawl between the leaves. However, the fact that some of the fl owers bloom at different times of the year shows that he was not striving to realistically depict nature. Brueghel depended on studies to guide his work, as did Rubens, who based several of the putti and the Christ Child on sketches of his own children (see figure below).

Art-technological research and imaging techniques provide intriguing insight on how artworks were created. Rubens’s distinctive, highly creative, and spontaneous way of working has been confi rmed in many paintings studied in this way. In the case of the Madonna in a Garland of Flowers the examination with X-rays and infrared reflectography was particularly illuminating.

Rubens began his work on the painting using an oak panel that was nearly square in format. The X-ray reveals that it was composed of seven vertical planks, whose joints were stabilized using evenly spaced pegs. The outer planks, both of which are about twenty-fi ve centimeters wide, are noteworthy: they were attached at a later point, and the area of the joints was carefully built up with filling compound to perfectly adapt them to the level of the existing painting — a measure that was clearly undertaken by Rubens during the painting process to significantly increase the size of the painting surface.

In general, the infrared reflectogram supplies valuable clues about the creative impulse for the change. Instead of executing the more schematic composition as originally planned, Rubens developed the final and much more dynamic composition on both planks of the enlargement, whose supplementary surfaces are differentiated by their slightly different background color. He used the space to nearly triple the number of busy putti from four to eleven. 

At this point Brueghel took over, adding the sumptuous garland with a variety of insects to the area that Rubens had left free. It was also his job to optically unify the two contributions. Some of the flowers are boldly painted over Rubens’s putti, who seem to reach into the illusionistically painted garland, further increasing the three-dimensional effect.

Although Rubens was responsible for developing the concept, the self-evident unity and monumentality of the work would not have been possible without Brueghel’s skill. This is teamwork at its best.