Pieter Bruegel The Elder: Key Influences on a great Northern Renaissance artist

Pieter Bruegel the Elder was unequalled as a painter during the latter portions of the Northern Renaissance.

... the 16th-century Flemish painter, draughtsman, and printmaker became known as the "peasant Bruegel" because of his extensive focus on the life of the ordinary people ... Wonderfully inventive, Bruegel gained particular esteem for his images of daily life and naturalistic landscapes. His influence on other painters of the Dutch Golden Age, as well as among later artists, was profound.

In this post I explore the key influences which informed the efforts of this artist.

Travel to Italy
While his trip to Italy did not result in the production of works in the classic style, it informed his landscape painting. There is some discussion as to whether Bruegel traveled overland through the Alps on his outward journey or whether he traveled to Rome via boat from Marseilles and then traversed the Alps on his return journey. Regardless of the details, the Alps made an indelible impression on Bruegel. As shown below, his earliest surviving works consist almost exclusively of landscape drawings.

Mountain Landscape with a River, 1553
Pieter Breugel The Elder

Landscape of the Alps, 1553
Pieter Breugel The Elder

Alpine Landscape, c. 1555 - c. 1556
Pieter Breugel The Elder

According to one source, his "... encounter with vast, mountainous landscapes was a seemingly inexhaustible source from which he drew inspiration for the rest of his career."

Hieronymus Bosch
Hieronymus Bosch (1474 - 1516) was "one of the most enigmatic artists of his epoch."  Bosch was born in the town of s'Hertogensbosch and is famous for the fantastic and disturbing details of his panel pictures, works which bring to mind modern-era surrealists. His most famous work is the Garden of Earthly Delights.

The Garden of Early Delights, 1490 - 1510
Hieronymus Bosch

During Bosch's lifetime, he was "widely revered and imitated by his students and followers." And Bruegel was no exception. His Big Fish Eat Little Fish does have a Boschian look and feel and, as a matter of fact, the engraver Pieter Van Der Hayden made a copy of this painting and named it as being from Bosch (who had died in 1516).

Big Fish Eat Little Fish, 1557
Engraving, after Pieter Bruegel

Bosch's The Last Judgment and Bruegel's The Fall of the Rebel Angels both draw on a surrealist strain to convey their messages.

The Last Judgment, c. 1482
Hieronymus Bosch

The Fall of the Rebel Angels, 1562
Pieter Bruegel The Elder

The Reformation
The Reformation had expanded steadily through the Low Countries from its initial beachhead in the Walloon province to the south. As the foothold solidified, artists in protestant areas painted fewer religious subjects, whether through personal conviction, or market demand, or both.

This new dynamic also resulted in a shift in non-religious style wherein large images from classic mythology were replaced by images portraying things at hand. The tradition of landscape and genre painting -- styles that would truly flourish in the upcoming century -- got their starts here. An example of this new direction was Pieter Bruegel's The Wedding Feast which has no historical, religious, or classic tones; rather, it reproduces a normal occurrence in the life of the Flemish peasantry.

The Wedding Feast, 1567

Pieter Bruegel The Elder

Pieter Coecke van Aelst
Pieter Coecke van Aelst was purported to be Pieter Bruegel's master (Bruegel eventually married Coecke's younger daughter Mayken) but it is very difficult to clearly elucidate the impact that he had on Bruegel beyond potentially encouraging him to make the trip to Italy. Pieter Coecke had made the trip to Rome and, on his return, his works reflected the classic style; so much so that I included him in my list of Romanist painters. Bruegel, even though he made the trip to Rome, did not reflect the Romanist style in his works.

Antwerp Humanists
It is widely held that Bruegel interacted with Antwerp humanists -- especially the cartographer Abraham Ortelius and the publisher Christopher Plantin -- and that thse relationships informed his work.

Waterschoot points out that Antwerp, given its focus on business, was not a perfect environment for humanists. Because of the efficiency of Antwerp printers, though, "there was a constant coming and going of distinguished men of learning."

In the second half of the 16th century, Plantin's offices developed into a humanist center and, together with his good friend, the cartographer Abraham Ortelius, he formed a nucleus "on which men like Justus Lipsuis, Joris Hoefnagel, Frans Hogenberg, and Gerard Mercator could rely on for their Antwerp affairs."

Plantin is known to have traded in Bruegel prints and maintained a close relationship with Hieronymous Cock, the primary publisher of Bruegel's prints. Ortelius, who became the leader of the Antwerp Learned Society upon Plantin's death, penned a moving epitaph to Bruegel in his Friendship Album wherein he referred to the artist as his friend.

There are dissenting voices as regards any relationship between Bruegel and the humanists. For example (Marissa Anne Bass):

And I cannot refrain from voicing my skepticism about Bruegel's presumed close association with contemporary humanists ... Ortelius's ownership of Bruegel's grisaille Death of the Virgin and his posthumous praise do not themselves affirm a close friendship between the two men, let alone an exchange of ideas between like minds.

Patrons
Bruegel's paintings were owned by members of Antwerps's professional merchant class and were most often displayed in private social rooms. These complex panels would probably have functioned as conversation pieces and the focus for debate during conversation among like-minded people.

Five of Bruegel's works were in the inventory of Jean Noirot, a former master of the Antwerp Mint, 12 in the inventory of the banker Niclaes Cornelius Cheras, and 16 in the possession of businessman Nicolas Jonglelind. Given the need for conversation pieces, and the amount of spend, it is inconceivable to think that these patrons did not exert influence Bruegel's efforts. The Bruegel self-portrait below would seem to bear that assertion out as the patron looks over his shoulder during the construct of a painting.

The Painter and The Connoisseur, c. 1565
Pieter Bruegel The Elder

In subsequent posts I will spend more time on Bruegel's works and his legacy.

Bibliography
Marissa Ann Bass, Book Review: Stephanie Porras, Pieter Bruegel's Historical Imagination, University Park, Penn State University Press, 2016
Amy Orock, "Homo ludens: Pieter Bruegel's Games and the Humanist Education," Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 4:2 (Summer 2012)
Werner Waterschoot, 16th Century Antwerp, a Cultural Capital, www,tyndale.org.


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