Rubens is a titan of Western art. The task of restoring his paintings is equally gigantic

ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) — When an iconic painting is in need of restoration, it is usually taken to a studio to be worked on in seclusion.

In the case of a massive Peter Paul Rubens masterpiece in the artist's Belgian hometown, the studio had to be taken to the painting. In the largest room of Antwerp's Royal Fine Arts Museum, the restorers have the eyes of visitors on their backs and — sometimes — criticism ringing in their ears.

At 6 meters (19.6 feet), the “Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints,” a lush swirl of flesh, fabric and drapes, stands taller than an adult giraffe. A team of six restorers is poring over it for a two-year cleanup, which is scheduled to end this fall. Compare that to Rubens himself, who could put paint to canvas on such a massive work in only a few weeks.

No wonder such panache, the grand gesture in a simple brushstroke, left all in awe — then and now. Rubens, perhaps Antwerp's most famous son, painted the work in 1628 in the studio of his house in the city.

“It's such a flamboyant painter that, yeah, we love it,” said Ellen Keppens, grasping for the proper effusive words. Together with her twin sister, Jill, Ellen is leading an international team of six women restorers.

On a recent morning, they were applying undertones to the Baroque masterpiece, sometimes crawling along the wood-paneled floor to apply a touch here or there. Later, they had to crouch under a metal staircase before heading up to the top corner for another dab of retouching there. Who ever said art restoration was not physical labor?

“Like our colleague says, she's become really good at yoga,” said Keppens of a team member. “You notice that you can bend in all kind of angles in front of a painting.” When a crick in her neck gets too bad, she can just walk to the computer desk next to the painting for some administrative work.

She'd better not look too far to her left down the room known as the Rubens gallery. At the other end stands another iconic work of the master, equally daunting and gigantic, and also badly in need of restoration: “The Adoration of the Magi.”

Koen Bulckens, the curator of the Baroque section at the museum, knows the challenges ahead.

“We will use this studio now for the treatment of this work,” he said, looking at the Madonna, the brightness of the original paint revealed after the painstaking removal of aged varnish. Then, he said, comes "another work, which is the ‘Adoration of the Magi.’"

And the clock is ticking. “The project is set to end in 2027, which will be the 450th anniversary of Rubens' birth. So it will be a jubilee year," Bulckens said.

As with so many centuries-old paintings, the biggest problems are old varnish and bad previous restorations.

“This work was covered by a very exceptionally, I must say, thick and yellow varnish which distorted on the one hand the colors, but on the other hand also the brushwork, which had become impossible to see,” said Bulckens.

In addition, two paintings hanging on either side of the Madonna had been cleaned 35 years ago, leaving the Rubens in the middle looking jaundiced. “It was obvious how yellow it looked. You can play with the museum light to make it a bit bluer, but that was really not a definitive solution,” he said.

Removing the varnish, though, left the painted surface with a dull complexion. Restorers working in a studio know the removal is part of the process and the final result will only look more splendid later. At the museum itself, some visitors were convinced the beloved painting was being ruined and, despite the ample "do not disturb" signs, let their concerns be known.

“Some absolutely we don’t realize it. And then they think, like, was it a good idea? Yes, of course it was a good idea,” said Keppens. “We know what's going to happen next,” once new varnish and touches are applied.

“Sometimes you have a moment to explain to visitors, but often we are just working and, yeah, but then we hear the comments in the background, of course,” Keppens said.

Standing up for the master — and for their own work — now comes naturally. After dealing with Rubens, month in and month out, “he is a very large part of our lives.”

Art conservators Jill Keppens, left, and Kayla Metelenis, right, work on sections of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

A Visitor looks at The Adoration of the Magi, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, which is scheduled to be restored in the future at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Art conservator Jill Keppens works on a section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

A section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, showing areas currently being worked on at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Art conservators Jill Keppens, left, and Kayla Metelenis, right, work under a scaffold on sections of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Art conservators Jill Keppens, left, and Kayla Metelenis, right, work on sections of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Art conservator Kayla Metelenis works on a section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

A section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, showing areas currently being worked on at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Art conservator Kayla Metelenis reaches for her palette as she works on a section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Art conservators Jill Keppens, left, and Kayla Metelenis, right, work on sections of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Visitors watch art conservators at work on the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Art conservator Jantine Maessens works on a section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump used contentiousness around transgender people's access to sports and bathrooms to fire up conservative voters and sway undecideds. And in his first months back in office, Trump has pushed the issue further, erasing mention of transgender people on government websites and passports and trying to remove them from the military.

It’s a contradiction of numbers that reveals a deep cultural divide: Transgender people make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, but they have become a major piece on the political chess board — particularly Trump’s.

For transgender people and their allies — along with several judges who have ruled against Trump in response to legal challenges — it’s a matter of civil rights for a small group. But many Americans believe those rights had grown too expansive.

The president's spotlight is giving Monday's Transgender Day of Visibility a different tenor this year.

“What he wants is to scare us into being invisible again,” said Rachel Crandall Crocker, the executive director of Transgender Michigan who organized the first Day of Visibility 16 years ago. “We have to show him we won’t go back.”

So why has this small population found itself with such an outsized role in American politics?

Trump's actions reflect a constellation of beliefs that transgender people are dangerous, are men trying to get access to women's spaces or are pushed into gender changes that they will later regret.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and other major medical groups have said that gender-affirming treatments can be medically necessary and are supported by evidence.

Zein Murib, an associate professor of political science and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Fordham University, said there has been a decades-old effort “to reinstate Christian nationalist principles as the law of the land” that increased its focus on transgender people after a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling recognizing same-sex marriage nationwide. It took a few years, but some of the positions gained traction.

One factor: Proponents of the restrictions lean into broader questions of fairness and safety, which draw more public attention.

Sports bans and bathroom laws are linked to protecting spaces for women and girls, even as studies have found transgender women are far more likely to be victims of violence. Efforts to bar schools from encouraging gender transition are connected to protecting parental rights. And bans on gender-affirming care rely partly on the idea that people might later regret it, though studies have found that to be rare.

Since 2020, about half the states passed laws barring transgender people from sports competitions aligning with their gender and have banned or restricted gender-affirming medical care for minors. At least 14 have adopted laws restricting which bathrooms transgender people can use in certain buildings.

In February, Iowa became the first state to remove protections for transgender people from civil rights law.

It's not just political gamesmanship. “I think that whether or not that’s a politically viable strategy is second to the immediate impact that that is going to have on trans people," Fordham’s Murib said.

More than half of voters in the 2024 election — 55% — said support for transgender rights in the United States has gone too far, according to AP VoteCast. About 2 in 10 said the level of support has been about right, and a similar share said support hasn’t gone far enough.

Nevertheless, AP VoteCast also found voters were split on laws banning gender-affirming medical treatment, such as puberty blockers or hormone therapy, for minors. Just over half were opposed to these laws, while just under half were in favor.

Trump voters were overwhelmingly likely to say support for transgender rights has gone too far, while Kamala Harris' voters were more divided. About 4 in 10 Harris voters said support for transgender rights has not gone far enough, while 36% said it’s been about right and about one-quarter said it’s gone too far.

A survey this year from the Pew Research Center found Americans, including Democrats, have become more slightly more supportive of requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams that match their sex at birth and more supportive on bans on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors since 2022. Most Democrats still oppose those kinds of measures, though.

Leor Sapir, a fellow at Manhattan Institute, a right-leaning think tank, says Trump's and Republicans' positions have given them a political edge.

“They are putting their opponents, their Democratic opponents, in a very unfavorable position by having to decide between catering to their progressive, activist base or their median voter,” he said.

Not everyone agrees.

“People across the political spectrum agree that in fact, the major crises and major problems facing the United States right now is not the existence and civic participation of trans people,” said Olivia Hunt, director of federal policy for Advocates for Trans Equality.

And in the same election that saw Trump return to the presidency, Delaware voters elected Sarah McBride, the first transgender member of Congress.

Paisley Currah, a political science professor at the City University of New York, said conservatives go after transgender people in part because they make up such a small portion of the population.

“Because it’s so small, it’s relatively unknown,” said Currah, who is transgender. “And then Trump has kind of used trans to signify what’s wrong with the left. You know: ‘It’s just too crazy. It’s too woke.’”

But Democratic politicians also know the population is relatively small, said Seth Masket, director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver, who is writing a book about the GOP.

“A lot of Democrats are not particularly fired up to defend this group,” Masket said, citing polling.

For Republicans, the overall support of transgender rights is evidence they are out of step with the times.

“The Democrat Party continues to find themselves on the wrong side of overwhelmingly popular issues, and it proves just how out of touch they are with Americans," National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella said.

Some of that message may be getting through. In early March, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, launched his new podcast by speaking out against allowing transgender women and girls competing in women’s and girls sports.

And several other Democratic officials have said the party spends too much effort supporting transgender rights. Others, including U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, have said they oppose transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports.

Jay Jones, the student government president at Howard University and a transgender woman, said her peers are largely accepting of transgender people.

“The Trump administration is trying to weaponize people of the trans experience … to help give an archenemy or a scapegoat,” she said. But “I don’t think that is going to be as successful as the strategy as he thinks that it will be.”

Associated Press polling editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed to this article. Jesse Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Demonstrators on Transgender Day of Visibility rally at the Pennsylvania Capitol, Monday, March 31, 2025, in Harrisburg, Pa. (AP Photo/Marc Levy)

Participants in the Trans Day of Visibility rally in the Pennsylvania Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg, Pa., on Monday, March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Scolforo)

FILE - A protester is silhouetted against a trans pride flag during a pro-transgender rights protest outside of Seattle Children's Hospital, Feb. 9, 2025, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, file)

FILE - Liv Y., center, holds a transgender pride flag as people gather to protest against the Trump administration and Project 2025 near the Washington State Capitol building, Feb. 5, 2025, in Olympia, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump signs an executive order barring transgender female athletes from competing in women's or girls' sporting events, in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)

FILE - Gene Sorensen holds up a transgender flag in front of the Nebraska state Capitol during a Transgender Day of Visibility rally, March 31, 2023, in Lincoln, Neb. (Larry Robinson/Lincoln Journal Star via AP, file)