Peter Paul Rubens

Born in 1577 to Flemish refugees in the Holy Roman Empire, Peter Paul Rubens moved to Antwerp around age twelve and grew into a classically educated humanist who could negotiate treaties as deftly as he mixed pigment. He ran a vast workshop that fed Europe's appetite for altarpieces, mythological epics, and hunt scenes, all rendered in his signature style: movement, color, sensuality, erudition. Knighted by Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England, he designed tapestries, published a book on Genoese palaces that influenced Northern architecture, collected art and books on a scale that made his Antwerp home a landmark, and dealt masterpieces to English dukes on the side. He painted on wood panels even for monumental commissions, switched to canvas when distance demanded it, and used slate for altarpieces to kill the glare. By his death in 1640, he'd left behind not just a catalogue but a weather system.