It is quite plainly intended here, to begin, in a minute way, to look at one of the media that the artists worked in, to look at their style and technique and perhaps begin to understand and comprehend how one had influenced the other. The influences not only being the Artists themselves, one upon the other, but also the way in which they executed their work and how knowledge of execution was passed on.

Perhaps it is important here to define and expand the word 'medium'. In the context of painting, it is regarded as the liquid in which the pigment is suspended. Linseed oil is the medium most used in oil painting, so it becomes the physical substance chosen as a vehicle of expression by the visual artist. Oil takes longer to dry than distemper[1] or tempera[2] and so it is possible to create subtler effects. Glazes are also used between layers of paint and colour in order that light is reflected through them. These techniques of paint and colour layering which the oil medium allowed are later referred to in this discussion. Academically, of course, these points form the core of this question, but I will take a more literal route through this subject.

It is perhaps true, that the method, approach, manner and fashion of a work are all shaped together with the mode, system, procedure and most of all the skill, that the artist used. The Artists mentioned here are made only to facilitate reference to the subject of this article and not as preferential choice of topic, matter or period. They chronologically begin with Leonardo da Vinci[3]. He was the Florentine painter,

Sculptor and draughtsman who has been universally described as a man of extraordinary gifts because of his skill and diversity of talent. He has also been regarded as one of the creators of the High Renaissance in 15^th /16^th century Italy.

There is much debate about Leonardo's early painting techniques because of the decay in his 'Last Supper' in Milan at Santa Maria delle Grazie[4]. However it should be mentioned that he was experimenting with oil, as a method of mural painting, in order to work on pictures for longer periods, as in oil painting.

Being a new medium to Italy, his notes speak of the oil techniques, the recipes for priming, for binding agents and varnishes. In about 1550, Vasari[5] importantly observed, when he wrote of Leonardo "...he added a kind of shadowing to the method of his colouring with oils which enabled moderns to endow their figures with great energy and relief. This is one of the immense new techniques that Leonardo was responsible for developing. It was rendering the effect of form onto the canvas or wood in terms of light and shade and is called 'chiaroscuro'[6]. The technique was used to model form almost in an imperceptible way by its graduations of lightness and darkness. Leonardo wrote ". bathing objects in light is merging them with the infinite."

The technique is generally only associated with the rise of oil as a medium, because it was difficult to achieve in the clear quick drying medium of tempera. Later he further wrote "...shadows and lights are the most certain means by which the shape of any body comes to be known, because a colour of equal lightness and darkness will not display any relief, but gives the effect of a flat surface, with all parts of equal distance from the brightness that illuminates it".[7] He developed perspective & form by the technique of increasing the tonal range from very dark to very light. This was now possible with effectiveness in the medium of oil painting.

Therefore, the oil medium assisted and worked in conjunction with the technique that the artist had developed. He jotted many mirrored writing notes, regarding his experiments with perspective & light as well as his geometric drawings encompassing subject construction, triangles, pentagons, which he illustrated for the use of enclosing the subject of his compositions.[8] All these techniques were passed on and became part of the style for enthusing life, movement & harmonious construction into works. Another was to blur or soften the edges of areas of shadow, giving them a smoky quality called 'sfumato' from the Italian word 'fumo' -meaning smoke. These techniques became a great gift to the world of art in that they were also used to express the form of the underlying structure of the body of a subject. At the same time, sometimes the surface shape was also illustrated in the form of the drapery[9] or clothing.

It has been appreciated that the sfumato process possibly reached its zenith of perfection by Leonardo in his "Virgin and Child and St. Anne".[10] He had finalised a technique, which would certainly be used by his predecessors. In this work it can be noticed that there are no hard edges, abrupt transitions or stark contrasts. Soft shadows float over the figures faces, causing the result to be one of exceptionally delicate and pleasing facial qualities.

It would possibly be irrational here, not to refer to the "Mona Lisa"[11], the best known of Leonardo's paintings, probably the most famous work of art in the world. Visari recorded that the sitter was the wife of a Florentine merchant and musicians, to prevent a melancholy expression, entertained her.

This enigmatic smile has been the subject of much constructive debate. It was Leonardos' masterpiece of the sfumato technique, blending vague colour and shade to give a misty, mysterious expression admired forever. 'Mona Lisa' is appropriate in the relationship between medium, technique and style because her expression was totally created by the slight shadows that Leonardo played on the eyes and the corners of her mouth. He, to create a vague impression of movement of the facial features, used this and the subtle, barely noticeable fuzziness, the sfumato. This avoided the stuffy image that many other portraits had previously possessed and took the execution of portraiture to warm human emotional heights. This was now possible with the fluidity that the oil allowed.

Aerial perspective was another technique perfected by Leonardo about 100 years before Rubens[12] used it. This allowed the creation of an illusion of greater depth than could be achieved by Linear perspective alone. Tonal range enhanced the effect of space because the foreground is dark and the background is light. It created the illusion of space behind the subject as if a pane of glass has been placed there.[13]Leonardo had written, "Perspective is nothing more than viewing a scene behind a flat, transparent piece of glass on whose surface all the objects located behind the glass have been drawn." All these techniques perfected into Leonardo's style had predominately come to the fore in his use and experimentation with the oil medium.

Rubens style is of course not a natural progression from Leonardo, although he was clearly influenced by the formers' methods and techniques. Rubens had studied in Italy and had seen the tonal contrasts used by Caravaggio[14] to create atmosphere. He had also noticed the use of central areas lit to dramatise the narrative of the work. Rubens also copied works from antiquity and masters such as Michelangelo and Titian.[15] His energetic Baroque style was expressive, bold and vibrant with energy and luminous colour. He blended his northern sense of realism into the grandeur and monumentality he saw in Italian art. This was his unique style, with busy brush strokes flitting about the painting and very suited to the use of oils as a medium with bright pigments.

In his "Peace and War" (Minerva protects Pax from Mars)[16] he commemorates the blessings of peace using full command of his skills and academic knowledge in colour, movement, drama and symbolism to convey the message in allegorical form. Part of his technique was that he worked rapidly. He worked out the basic idea in fluent sketches and then employed assistants to help him. The underlying design technique, of this picture, is a simple diagonal from bottom right to top left. Below the diagonals is Peace, brightly lit and rich in colour. Above the diagonals is War, portrayed in darkness. Rubens invoked his love of movement and visual drama, by creating and using the rising diagonal of figures, which were his constructional style. This painting was presented to Charles I, who knighted Rubens,[17]for all his efforts in both artistic and noble stately skills.

It can be seen in Rubens work that tone was used to create drama, a philosophy used in Baroque, particularly in ceiling paintings .In relation to Rubens style, it must be borne in mind that before him, Flemish painting had been intimate art meticulously executed for close examination by art lovers.

Large compositions were exaggerated dimensions of easel paintings and the results were figures floating about in empty space. Ostensibly unstable compositions characteristic of the mannerist style and the so-called "flat-art" without much perspective were produced.

Rubens however, by his style and use of the techniques he had observed in Italy, bought compositions credibility on a grand scale, with subjects filling every space and being conjoined by common theme. It is thought that Rubens preferred working on wood as it gave him a smooth surface for his brush stroke fluency.

A brilliant colourist, his unrestrained technique in producing vast shows of flesh and power seem to characterise most of his work. His startling use of dazzling colours bought a comment from an Italian contempary, Guido Reni[18] who said "This fellow mixes blood with his colours." Rubens allegorical style was supplemented by his skill in linking the subjects together in a structured harmony. He appears to be requesting the eye to quickly follow the composition of the work, figuratively, from foreground to background, as quickly and freely as his symbolic 'frenzied' brush had worked.

In the National Gallery a portrait study of "Susanna Lunden (Le Chapeau de Paille)"[19]can be seen in which it is apparent that Rubens had mastery of managing natural lighting. Although executed in his studio, he depicts natural light and the shadows cast. They do not diminish the brightness of the subject's skin and its pearly translucency. In executing this work, he first covered the reflective white chalk ground of the panel with an irregular hatching of raw umber paint. This was applied with a course brush to produce the desired effect. The technique created a shimmering middle tone between light and dark. Flesh colour was applied over the silvery brown hatching where it is thinnest and the brown under modelling is now apparent as shadow. White highlights with red and dark shadows were added over the flesh colour on the nose, cheeks, neck and bosom. Fluent handling of the brush is his technique for the wisps of hair, which are painted with the tip, or point of the brush handle. These techniques were only possible because of the component qualities of the oil medium used.

In studying the techniques and style of Rubens, one is not unnaturally drawn to comparisons with the techniques and style of his some time contempory -Rembrandt.[20] Both artists, it can be said, drew influences from Italy, although Rembrandt never journeyed further than his native Holland. These influences and those of their backgrounds and patronage certainly engendered their individual styles.

It also, to a certain extent, influenced the technique used to execute their works. For these reasons it is useful to mention the Netherlands of the 17^th century. Rubens in the Catholic south and Rembrandt in the Protestant north representing the contrasts of Baroque painting, possibly at its peak. Rubens monumental creations for nobility and church, tended to forge links between the mortal, earthly world and the realms of heaven. Rembrandts subtle chiaroscuro, of which he was the master, revealed hidden depths of the human soul, creating a new dimension in portraiture.

There are limits to usefulness of any comparison, which sometimes, tend to lead to highlighting certain deviations. However, Rubens undoubtedly was an aristocratic painter sought after by the ruling houses of Europe and the church. Rembrandt, a miller's son, attempted to run a patrician[21] house in Amsterdam, but had failed. He eventually withdrew to the outskirts of the Ghetto, avoiding human contact and devoting himself entirely to painting.

However, these two men had a great number of things in common, both were largely self-taught, apart from their beginnings. Both had a great impact on the world of art, becoming masters of their century & shaping the development of painting. They each had practised every genre of painting from history to portraiture. Both were passionate about their Art.

Rembrandts' interpretation in his work is unmistakably straightforward and truthful, depicting real life emotional genre scenes. His mastery of chiaroscuro, in which he created deep shadow & light to generate atmosphere and reality, was a technique he perfected to exactitude. The pragmatism depicted by Rembrandt of everyday life in 17^th century Holland is what has attracted Art historians, collectors and critics alike. Another startling technique was the use of tone as an emotional expression. In some respects, not unlike the language in art that Caravaggio used, but for creating a different effect. Rembrandts' mastery of tone can be seen more clearly in his drawing and printmaking than is apparent in his oils.

However, he mastered and developed another technique, as well as chiaroscuro, he prolifically practised the use of 'impasto'. This technique, generally only used in the oil medium, is where the paint is kneaded, sometimes by palette knife into a thicker form. It is then made to stand out from the surface of the canvas to create a feeling of structured cohesion and solidarity.

In Rembrandts' "The Jewish Bride"[22], he uses a dark background, the figures in the light from the top left, to capture his greatest expression of tenderness and love.

His technique of execution is in the way the subjects are placed in middle ground inviting the viewer to look straight at the lighter parts of the figures and the two faces, which are the area of the greatest emotional significance. The impasto technique can be noticed on the mans' sleeve, which is intensified by the arrangement of pale tones creating the perceived intimacy of a delicate and cherished touch.

Technique in this picture is exemplified by closer inspection of the impasto method Rembrandt used in the depiction of the fulsome garments. It can possibly be further envisaged that this technique, for which he is well known, was part of the Masters style and therefore the two terms, technique and style are inextricably linked. This idea can be further developed in that Rembrandts methods were sometimes known to have been painted in what is termed as a 'rough' or 'broad manner' and he preferred his clients to view the completed works from a distance. On an occasion when a patron at his workshops in Amsterdam peered at the work too closely, he is purported to have remarked, "Look from back here, the smell of the paint may upset you!" and tugged upon the mans'sleeve to pull him away.

This work entitled "Belshazzar's Feast"[23] sees three of the major techniques he uses. Impasto, foreshortening[24]and chiaroscuro. The observer is immediately drawn into the painting by his typical technique of shrouding the subjects mid ground. Then by lighting their emotions, Rembrandt expresses movement and alarm by stance, position of arms and of course human facial expression.

Impasto again is worked in the robes and is particularly thick on the jewels in this painting. The brocade built up on layers of umber that is allowed to show through in his technique.

Finally in discussing the question and analysing these artists, it is perhaps useful to bear in mind that technique is probably directly governed by the medium used and that style is infinitely individualistic to the artist. All three elements however, work hand in hand and in close relationship with each other, particularly when in the hands of these great Masters. Appreciation of visual images in Art is also an infinitely individualistic aspect of approval, admiration and enjoyment, but the understanding of its construction both physically and allegorically make it more satisfying. Examples of Leonardo's - Sfumato, Rembrandts-Chiaroscuro & Rubens- Baroque influence.

Typically Baroque, large twisting figures with fleshy female & dramatic colours including passionate red in a triangular composition.

Leonardo	Rembrandt	Rubens

Article by Mike W. Bucknole, May, 2001.

All rights protected.

For Acknowledgments - see Bibliography.

With thanks for guidance & editing to Hilary Ghey, Senior Lecturer, Southampton Institute.