Rubens, Peter Paul (1577-1640), Flemish painter on canvas, considered the most important of the 17th century, whose style came to define the animated, exuberantly sensuous aspects of baroque painting on canvas. Combining the bold brushwork, luminous color, and shimmering light of the Venetian school with the vigor of the art of Michelangelo and the formal dynamism of Hellenistic sculpture, Rubens created a vibrant style on canvas, with an energy that emanates from tensions between the intellectual and the emotional, the classical and the romantic.