A Forest at Dawn with a Deer Hunt

Rubens painted about three dozen landscapes during his busy career, mostly for his own pleasure. The late ones, like this superb example, transform earlier Flemish models through fresh studies of nature and colour and brushwork ultimately inspired by Titian.

The intensity and the red and yellow colours of the sunlight strongly suggest that the sun is setting; the deer, chased by a hunter and his hounds, are running for shelter in the deepening shadows of the forest. Rubens often suggested in his landscapes an encounter of elemental forces, such as light penetrating darkness, a struggle between life and death, or the cycle of growth and decay. Here the twisted forms of old trees contrast with the slender trunks of new ones and in their impetuous rhythms add to the sense of urgency and life surging throughout nature.