'An Autumn Landscape with
a View of Het Steen in the Early Morning', 1636
by Peter Paul Rubens
London, The National Gallery.
For 2006/07, the one-day Continuing
Professional Development courses, called 'Take One Picture',
run by National Gallery Education, focused on 'An Autumn
Landscape with a View of Het Steen in the Early Morning',
by Peter Paul Rubens.
The course looked at ways of using
paintings in the classroom as a starting point for delivering
many areas of the National Curriculum. This principle
aligns closely with the DfES
Primary National Strategy: Excellence and Enjoyment,
which supports a holistic approach to the curriculum
by exploiting the links between subject areas.
This large landscape shows a view
of Het Steen ('stone house'), which was the home of
the artist Rubens. He painted it for himself. He was
in semi-retirement by the time he bought Het Steen and
had earned enough money from his successful career as
an artist to have the luxury of being able to paint
for pleasure.
Rubens's painting is full of clues as to the time of
day and the season it depicts. The colour of the countryside
foliage and the flowering plants, such as blackberry
and chrysanthemum, in the foreground indicate that this
is an autumn scene. Meanwhile, the position of the sun
in relation to the view, looking north towards the town
of Malines on the horizon, show it rising in the east,
meaning it must be morning. Various activities carried
out by people in the painting also suggest it is early
in the day, such as the group of women milking cows
in the distant field, and the couple on a horse-drawn
carriage laden with barrels and goods, perhaps on their
way to market.
Click
here to view work
from the 2008 exhibition, inspired by this painting.
© The National Gallery,
London |
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