Of war and peace, the nude figure of Pax (Peace) is at the centre of the composition. ![]() Kossoff has commented: ‘y attitude to these works has always been to teach myself to draw from them, and, by repeated visits, to try to understand why certain pictures have a transforming effect on my mind.’ (Quoted in Morphet, p.225.) ![]() He is not concerned with copying a painting by an Old Master, but with gaining a level of knowledge that will allow him the freedom to ‘move about in its imaginative spaces’ (quoted in Kendall, p.19). For Kossoff, drawing is a way of getting closer to the subject and, in studying images by older artists and interpreting them in new ways, he has bonded more closely with the works and deepened his understanding of the dynamics at play in their compositions. This commitment has resulted in a decades-long dialogue with Rubens and others, enacted through regular visits to the National Gallery to draw in front of Old Master paintings. In the course of his career, a commitment to drawing has been a guiding principle: ‘I think of everything I do as a form of drawing,’ he has explained (quoted in Kendall, p.19). Kossoff’s first visit to the National Gallery in 1936, at the age of only ten, had a powerful impact on him. Kossoff collaborated on the production of the prints with the artist Ann Dowker. P20306 and P20307 are from two different plates, and are unique prints. Kossoff etched these works in front of the paintings in question and a quality of spontaneity is characteristic of the finished prints, as is his ability to develop different responses to the same painting. Tate owns several of the artist’s prints after this Rubens painting, P11700–4, dating from 1998, and P20306–7, both from 1999. The work in this case is Minerva Protects Pax from Mars (‘Peace and War’), 1629–30, by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640). Executed by the London-based artist Leon Kossoff in response to Old Master paintingsįrom the National Gallery.
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