Peter Paul Rubens' gifts as an artist were as comprehensive as they were supreme. A prolific painter of illimitable resource and invention, he was a master of intellect and emotion, figure and form, color and sweep. In all his artistic endeavors, he proved himself the true heir of Renaissance art of both the North and the South, inspired by -- and assimilating -- the best of both. Yet he was very much a man of his time and in retrospect the most...