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The life and work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder
- AndyMcConachie 3y agoI love Pieter Breugel's work. Does anyone know where I can buy reproductions of his work online and have them shipped to me?
- kashyapc 3y agoI don't know about the full-size reproductions, but I own a (hardcover) copy of "Bruegel in Detail" book[1], which zooms into specific details of many paintings and provides great explanations. I also own an excellent large hard-cover edition of "Bruegel in Black and White"[2]. I don't see it in English, only in Dutch, I'm afraid. But it has many of Bruegel's black-and-white prints (an overlooked gem!) in life-sized reproductions. It was based on an exhibition[3] from the past at KBR museum in Brussels (where the Bruegel's black-and-white works are in store; they're all digitized here[4]). [1] https://ludion.be/en/books/detail/bruegel-in-detail https://ludion.be/en/books/detail/bruegel-in-detail [2] https://hannibalbooks.be/en/bruegel-in-zwart-en-wit https://hannibalbooks.be/en/bruegel-in-zwart-en-wit [3] https://www.kbr.be/en/the-world-of-bruegel-in-black-and-white/ https://www.kbr.be/en/the-world-of-bruegel-in-black-and-whit... [4] https://belgica.kbr.be/BELGICA/SearchMinify/4UlmraV5bUm1kwPM3VMaVA https://belgica.kbr.be/BELGICA/SearchMinify/4UlmraV5bUm1kwPM...
- AndyMcConachie 3y agoThanks.
- kashyapc 3y agoNice to see Bruegel on HN. Google's "Arts and Culture" project has some splendid high-resolution images[1] of some of Bruegel's works. E.g. See this[2] detailed explanation of one of his classics, "Harvesters". And here are a couple of other fun paintings, "Hunters in the Snow"[3] and "Dutch Proverbs"[4] — this one has about 126 literal illustrations of Dutch-language proverbs; you can read the list of proverbs here[5]. [1] https://artsandculture.google.com/story/VQVR2ypjgSxiIQ?hl=en https://artsandculture.google.com/story/VQVR2ypjgSxiIQ?hl=en [2] "Harvesters" -- https://artsandculture.google.com/story/kQUxmAo9GNvEJA?hl=en https://artsandculture.google.com/story/kQUxmAo9GNvEJA?hl=en [3] "Hunters in the snow" -- https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/hunters-in-the-snow-winter-pieter-bruegel-the-elder/WgFmzFNNN74nUg https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/hunters-in-the-snow-... [4] "The Dutch Proverbs" https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-dutch-proverbs-pieter-bruegel-the-elder/WwG8mD89xbELbQ?hl=en https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-dutch-proverbs-p... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandish_Proverbs#Proverbs_and_idioms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandish_Proverbs#Proverb...
- nelox 3y agoVisit https://insidebruegel.net https://insidebruegel.net to view high-resolution images of all the paintings by Bruegel in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Macrophotography, infrared macrophotography, infrared reflectography and X-radiography images are available. The most comprehensive exhibition of his work to date, was held by the museum in 2018-2019. The exhibition catalogue is magnificent : https://hannibalbooks.be/bruegel-the-hand-of-the-master-the-450th-anniversary-edition https://hannibalbooks.be/bruegel-the-hand-of-the-master-the-...
- kashyapc 3y agoThanks for the excellent references! (I was recently planning to be in Vienna to check out some of these works at the Kunsthistorisches.) Ah the 2018-2019 exhibition you're referring to was done for his 450th anniversary. I recall going on a "Bruegel binge" and visited some 5 exhibitions in 2019 winter in Brussels and Antwerp. It was outstanding. One of the memorable exhibitions was an immersive experience in Brussels: four entire rooms were projected, from floor to ceiling, with Bruegel's works, slowly zooming in while beautiful piano music played.
- malermeister 3y agoThe KHM is a world-class museum that is nowhere near as famous internationally as it should be, imo.
- coolandsmartrr 3y agoMy connection with Brugel the Elder comes from it being referenced in "Solaris," a Soviet sci-fi film by Andrei Tarkovsky. In this film, Tarkovsky displays the artwork in seminal moments. Artwork: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/hunters-in-the-snow-winter/WgFmzFNNN74nUg?hl=en-GB&avm=2 https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/hunters-in-the-snow-...
- tkb 3y agoInteresting to see here how different people discover Bruegel... I did so through Michael Frayn's entertaining "Headlong", a caper about an academic unsuited to subterfuge who thinks he's discovered a masterpiece. (Some of the Goodreads reviews are less favourable on the slabs of research which the author provides - I found it interesting but admittedly have forgotten much of it since reading the novel many years ago...)
- roel_v 3y agoMeta: it's kind of eerie to read an article like this that is obviously written by an 'outsider'. Although non of what's written is factually wrong (as far as I can tell, I'm no historian), the specific way certain nuances are skipped over gives it an almost 'uncanny valley' feeling. Part of it is that it's written in English and certain nuances just don't exist (like his mentioning 'Lord of the Netherlands' vs 'de Nederlanden/Nederland', his strange 'Aux quatre vents' translation - yes I know it's correct literally, but it just feels so off compared to the idiomatic meaning), others skip over so much historical and current geo-political context that it seems tone-deaf to sensitivities ('the Dutch Republic (loosely modern Holland)'). I understand that for an article on an historical painter, you cannot go into details like this, what I'm saying is the choice of what the writer considered important and the way he skips over nuance makes it feel very alien. I guess this phenomenon is well-known by people who are from cultures that are usually written about by outsiders :) but I don't encounter it often and this specific article just evoked this really weird feeling in me. So many instances where I internally reacted with 'WFT is this guy saying' yet no actual factual errors that I can find.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agomaybe it's not written by a 'person' as this seems to be a common experience when dealing with ML generated texts.
- roel_v 3y agoHaha I didn't want to go into accusations like that, since it does list an author at the bottom and this is apparently an excerpt from a book, but still.
- allturtles 3y agoIt's not clear to me what the substance of your criticism is. What is the idiomatic meaning of "to the four winds" that's missed? What's wrong with "This division would eventually result in the establishment of the Dutch Republic (loosely modern Holland) and the Spanish Netherlands (loosely modern Belgium and Luxembourg)."?
- dwighttk 3y agoHow do you write this and only have 4 pictures, 3 from the subject of the article?
- NHQ 3y agoThis is ILLITERATE narrative. This is weak science and trash journalism. Painters of the time were literal, which make this hit piece an illiterate writing of history. This is news from the academic synod, and not without purpose to deceive. What evidence do we have that Bruegel was not painting reality as seen? Based on what report and observation does this journalist assume the details they give to you? Soon they will tell you the white whale from Moby Dick was not real, but a phantasy, no such creatures ever existed. This essay is deliberately avoiding Breugel's religious works and feeding you pasteurized scholastic to flavor his psychological profile for you to phancy. Yet they will tell you his actual pastorals "are a study of man in nature", in other words real historical document. They are telling you fairy tales while you look at real pictures, and then present to you, as phact, a CGI of Earth in space and CGI of a hairy ball of fire and CGI of a planet with rings around it. Bruegel's paintings are more real than quantum physical representations, but you believe time travel and aliens are more real than history as displayed in psychical images. This tactic is modern and used religiously, it is no different than character deformation. If you care more about the man than the work, you can write off the result any which way. Now you are set loose to believe a person would only say or do as such because they are "crazy" or have a phony syndrome; in reality they give you the syndrome. The proof of this is simple. If you see beauty, nobody can tell that what you feel is actually the very image and form of the opposite. The thing itself resonates with you, and thus the beauty must be in you also, as if you are the very instrument which measures beauty. If I tell you the character of the person, I am attempting to resonate those personal traits inside yourself, and thus if I say the character was psycho, and achieve that trait in you, your perception of the genuine article becomes psychotic, and you no evidence the person in question was any which way. Beauty does not allow for that, for nobody can tell you otherwise. Not all things are beautiful, but that does not make them unreal. Your sense of beauty is the barometer of sanity, but importantly it is the basis of true relational science, for beauty tells us that we should not be deceived by unreal observations which can only be given to us; your observation is the only real one you can trust. Now, you might ask "But then should we not question the observations of Bruegel?" Yes, that is precisely it, base your judgement on original observations and correlate those with as many findings as you can, rather than lazily accepting reformed observations by psychotic hackwits attempting to dictate what is real and not.
- kashyapc 3y agoI see comments about the quality of the writing in the article. For a more higher-quality treatment of Bruegel, Manfred Sellink's books[1] are not to be missed. Sellink is the leading Bruegel scholar. [1] https://books.google.be/books/about/Bruegel_in_Detail.html?id=MxFEswEACAAJ&source=kp_author_description&redir_esc=y https://books.google.be/books/about/Bruegel_in_Detail.html?i...
- Daub 3y agoBruegel was perhaps the first realist. By which I mean he painted people in the costume of the day and not in classical robes. I explain realism to my students as one of the primary 'atom bombs' of visual art: an idea that permenently disrupted visual language. The realism effect can be seen in the shaker cam effect of movies like clover field and the Blair witch project. I see no problem at all with genealogically relating these movies with Bruegels paintings.
- tomcam 3y agoNot a great article but it doesn’t matter much. Just explore the works of both the Elder and the Younger. They’re maybe the best illustrations of life in those times we will ever see. In person the paintings are exquisitely small. If you view the Louvre’s many examples you might be surprised, because they’re hung willy-nilly on walls crowded with other masterpieces. Museums in the USA generally have far fewer works of such quality, so they get treated much more respectfully: no paintings nearby, somewhat better plaques, deliberate lighting, etc.