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| Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
Little is known about Bruegel's birth or early life. One of his early biographers lists his place of birth as Breda while another lists it as a town near Breda named Brueghel. No such town has been located.
His biographers place Bruegel under the tutelage of the Antwerp-based painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst (who died in 1550 and whose younger daughter Mayken would eventually become Bruegel's wife). There is concrete evidence that Bruegel was in Mechelen in 1550 and 1551 in the employ of the artist and art dealer Claude Dorize. Dorize had a contract with the glove makers' guild to paint an altarpiece for emplacement in Saint Rombout Cathedral and had secured the services of Peeter Baltons to paint the main panel and Bruegel to paint the wings in grisaile. Coecke's wife was originally from Mechelen so it is conceivable that she was instrumental in Bruegel getting this commission. He joined the Antwerp painters guild in 1551 after completion of the Mechelen effort (Orenstein).
Bruegel traveled to Italy between 1552 and 1554. He crossed over to the peninsula from Lyon, traveling as far south as Sicily before finally making his way to Rome, where he sojourned for a while. It is hypothesized that he made this journey in the company of two Antwerp artists: the painter and print designer Maarlen de Vos and the sculptor Jacob Jongelinck.
Bruegel's earliest works show that he was an accomplished landscapist prior to embarking on his trip to Italy (Royalton-Kisch). The drawings for River Landscape and Southern Cloister in a Valley are viewed as based on in-situ drawings while the Naval Battle in the Strait of Messina, while showing a later date, is probably also based on drawings made while he was in Sicily. River Landscape and Southern Cloister in a Valley both show extraordinary variety of touch while the former serves up "broad, empty expanses of river and open sky" (Royalton-Kisch).
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| River Landscape, 1552 Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
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| Southern Cloister in a Valley, engraving, 1552 After Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
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| Wooded Landscape with Mills, 1552 Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
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| Pastoral Landscape, 1552 Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
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| Mountain Landscape with Ridge and Valley, 1552 Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
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| Naval Battle in the Strait of Messina, engraving, 1561 After Peter Bruegel the Elder |
In Rome Bruegel met and collaborated with the Croatian miniaturist Giulio Clovio whose estate inventory included a number of works done by the Flemish artist during his sojourn. One of these works was a miniature painted in equal parts by the two artists. The location of the Bruegel works that were in the possession of Clovio are unknown today.
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| Ripa Grande in Rome, 1552 - 1554 Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
In 1554 Bruegel returned to Antwerp and began working with Hieronymus Cock, one of the best-known print publishers in the Antwerp market at that time. His first effort was Landscape with Bears which Cock elaborated and etched as Landscape with the Temptation of Christ.
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| Landscape with the Temptation of Christ, 1554 After Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
In the 1555-56 timeframe, Bruegel developed the designs for the Large Landscapes group of prints, the beginning of a very productive period as a designer of prints. Extending until 1561, this period yielded more than 40 drawings and provided a steady source of income for the young artist. In the same timeframe he completed four paintings:The Parable of the Sower (1557), The Netherlandish Proverbs (1559), The Battle between Carnival and Lent (1559), and The Children's Games (1560)
Bruegel becomes increasingly active as a painter in 1562, producing the bulk of his known paintings between this year and his death in 1569.
He married Mayken in 1563 and moves to Brussels. There is some conjecture as to why a painter coming into his own would move from the financial center (and wealthy patrons) in Antwerp to the seat of government in Brussels but, in the end, it worked out for him. His patrons included:
- Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granville
- Nicolas Jongelinck, prominent Antwerp merchant and royal official (owned 16 of Bruegel's works
- Abraham Ortelius, cartographer.
Bruegel did not publish any writings or descriptions of his work that would either assist in their interpretation or provide insight into his religious or political beliefs. The Low Countries were in the midst of a major religious conflagration between the Calvinists and the Catholics, with the Duke of Alva on the hunt for any and all heretics, yet none of this clearly shows through in his works. In the few drawings and prints which can be categorized as religious, his Tower of Babel is more an allegory "of human pride than a representation of the story in Genesis." In New Testament works, he "showed little interest in depicting Christ's life as reported in the Gospels; instead, he favored the parables uttered by Christ."
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| The Tower of Babel, c. 1563 Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
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| The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, 1560 - 63 After Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
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| The Parable of the Good Shepherd, 1565 After Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
I will examine the evolution of Bruegel's style in my next post.
Bibliography
Joseph Leo Koster, In Love with Multiplicity, New York Review of Books, May 23, 2019.
Nadine M. Orenstein, The Elusive Life of Pieter Bruegel the Elder in Nadine M. Orenstein (ed.), Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Press, 2001.
Martin Royalton-Kisch, Pieter Bruegel as a Draftsman: The Changing Image in Nadine M. Orenstein (ed.), Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Press, 2001.
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