Artistic transmission in the Low Countries. De Grebber's creative imitation of Rubens

Samenvatting

This article will focus on the transmission of artistic ideas and the importance of personal networks as an active force in shaping artistic phenomena. In this contribution I will concentrate on the transmission of Rubens’s artistic ideas and knowledge from the Southern to the Northern Netherlands, concentrating on the work of Pieter de Grebber. My contribution will emphasize how this young artist from Haarlem had access to Rubens’s artistic ideas and knowledge in a period that his work was not yet widely spread in the Northern Netherlands. It will give new insights into how networks and objects led to creative imitation with innovative results that constituted a vital contribution to history painting in the Northern Netherlands.