Pieter Bruegel by Misha Beletsky

artist monographs

larry silve\

larry silver, who received his Ph.D. from Harvard university, is Farquhar Professor of art History at the university of Pennsylvania. His other books include Hieronymus Bosch and Art in History, both published by abbeville Press, as well as Rembrandt’s Faith and Peasant Scenes and Landscapes.

also avai la B le F rom aBBev ille Pr ess

Hieronymus Bosch

By larry silver isbn 978-0-7892-0901-6 $150.00

Caravaggio

second edition By John T. spike isbn 978-0-7892-1059-3 $95.00

Courbet

By ségolène le men isbn 978-0-7892-0977-1 $135.00

Pieter Bruegel

aBou T TH e au THo r

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Bruegel

Artists’ Self-portraits By omar Calabrese isbn 978-0-7892-0894-1 $135.00 Landscape Painting: A History By Nils Büttner isbn 978-0-7892-0902-3 $135.00

aB Bevi lle P ress 137 varick street New york, Ny 10013 1-800-artbook (in u.s. only) Available wherever ﬁne books are sold visit us at www.abbeville.com Printed in italy

larry silve\

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Bruegel l a r ry s i lv e r

he recent rediscovery in spain of Pieter Bruegel the elder’s lost painting The Wine of Saint Martin’s Day has created even more interest in this much-loved artist, who was one of the Netherlands’ two great masters of satire and fantasy, along with Hieronymus Bosch. although these two artists never met each other—for Bruegel was born around 1525, some ten years after Bosch’s death—there were many points of comparison between them; indeed, Bruegel produced a number of demon-infested hellscapes directly inspired by the older master, and was known in antwerp as a “second Bosch.” But Bruegel is most famous for his peasant scenes, often humorous and packed with anecdote, and his landscapes, which poignantly evoke Nature and her changing seasons. His legacy to Netherlandish art was the enduring popularity of both these genres, as well as the artistic dynasty he founded, beginning with his painter sons Pieter the younger and Jan Brueghel. Critics have often remarked how Bruegel’s art, so keenly observed and richly detailed, seems to preserve a world in miniature. in this new monograph, larry silver, an eminent historian of Northern renaissance art, serves as our guide to that world. He leads us expertly through the intricacies of Bruegel’s iconography, allowing us to see his works from the same perspective as his sixteenth-century countrymen. silver also situates Bruegel within the context of Netherlandish history and, more specifically, within the visual culture of his time, exploring his relationships with such figures as the print publisher Hieronymus Cock, and devoting a final chapter to Bruegel’s influence on later Flemish and Dutch art. The 355 illustrations, most in full color, reproduce all of Bruegel’s surviving paintings, a large part of his graphic work, and representative pieces by his contemporaries and followers; numerous fullpage details bring the reader in close proximity to these masterworks. This volume on Bruegel complements silver’s widely praised monograph on Hieronymus Bosch, also published by abbeville Press. These two books are the most authoritative and bestillustrated studies of their respective subjects, and together they present us with a panorama of more than a century of Netherlandish art.

Pieter Bruegel

Piete|

Bruegel Larry Silver

abbeville press publishers new yorkâ&#x20AC;&#x201A; london

for the original edition Editorial Director: Agnès de Gorter Photo Researcher: Béatrice Coti Graphic Design: Marc Walter/Studio Chine Editor: Suzanne Madon for the english–language edition Editors: Mary Christian and Susan Costello Production Manager: Louise Kurtz Design and Typography: Misha Beletsky Composition: Angela Taormina First published in the United States of America in 2011 by Abbeville Press, 137 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013. First published in France in 2011 by Éditio-Éditions Citadelles & Mazenod, 8, rue Gaston de Saint-Paul, 75116, Paris First published in the United States of America in 2011 by Abbeville Press, 137 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013. Copyright © Éditio-Éditions Citadelles & Mazenod, 2011. All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to Abbeville Press, 137 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013. The text of this book was set in Galliard. Printed in Italy. First edition 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Silver, Larry, 1947– Pieter Bruegel / Larry Silver. — 1st ed. p. cm. Simultaneously published in Paris, France in 2011 by Editio-Editions Citadelles & Mazenod. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-7892-1104-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Bruegel, Pieter, ca. 1525–1569—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Bruegel, Pieter, ca. 1525–1569—Catalogues raisonnis. I. Bruegel, Pieter, ca. 1525–1569. II. Title. ND673.B73S53 2011 759.9493—dc23 2011024612 For bulk and premium sales and for text adoption procedures, write to Customer Service Manager, Abbeville Press, 137 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013, or call 1-800-Artbook. Visit Abbeville Press online at www.abbeville.com.

Front Cover: Pieter Bruegel The Grain Harvest Detail of plate 278 Back Cover: Pieter Bruegel Netherlandish Proverbs Detail of plate 191 1 (page 2) Pieter Bruegel Peasant Kermis Detail of plate 291 2 (pages 4–5) Pieter Bruegel Hunters in the Snow Detail of plate 275 3 (pages 8–9) Pieter Bruegel Wedding Dance Detail of plate 288 4 (page 10) Pieter Bruegel Wedding Dance Detail of plate 288

contents

2 3

4 5

6 7

8 9

10 11

Preface 11 God in the Details: Christ Carrying the Cross (1564) Bruegel in Antwerp

Hieronymus Cock, Bruegel’s Printmaker Bruegel as Landscape Architect

The “Second Bosch”: Bruegel Adapts a Tradition Parables, Proverbs, Pastimes

181

Religion and Tradition: Antwerp, Early 1560s Religious Imagery in a Time of Troubles Peasant Labor and Leisure Social Stresses and Strains Bruegel’s Legacy

Conclusions

Notes

399

433

438

Index of Names Index of Works

461 462

307

361

263

239

137

he several copies after Bruegel’s drawing The Painter and His Client (plate 321) suggest the continuing popularity of that particular work and of the artist himself well into the next generation. Certainly it is fair to state that Bruegel also soon came to assume the same status as Bosch had held for Bruegel himself in his early career, namely an artist with a distinctive and clearly recognizable repertoire of motifs and themes that could be adapted and repeated with great commercial success. Whereas the early Bruegel design of Big Fish Eat Little Fish had appeared in 1556 as a Cock engraving in the form of an invention of “Hieronijmus Bos,” soon after Bruegel’s own death in 1569, a number of landscape drawings appeared, falsely ascribed to his name. One of the principal tasks of scholarship during the past generation has been to sort out these intentional forgeries, as well as deceptive imitations and later creative adaptations from the model of Bruegel—notably in the field of independent drawings. Outright forgeries are fairly rare among Bruegel followers, but a cluster of landscape drawings (Mielke A21– 45) has now been convincingly reattributed to a younger

Flemish artist, Jacob Savery (c. 1565–1603) on the basis of a pair of similar drawings that he signed and dated.⁄ For the most part, these works feature drawings of rocky mountain settings, sometimes punctuated with small castles or villages and occasional tiny figures progressing slowly through narrow passes. Most of these drawings are signed in block letters and dated between the years 1559 and 1562; previously they were regarded as the latest dated authentic Bruegel landscape drawings, and they do simulate the flickering effects of Bruegel’s disciplined grammar of ink strokes.¤ A representative image, larger in size and falsely signed and dated 1562, incorporates many of the main motifs of this series of convincing forgeries (plate 325). It includes, at the right side, small-scale figures who make their way up a steep mountain road with towering mountains behind them at the horizon. Across a river stands a small fortified castle at the foot of high cliffs. The careful draftsmanship comprises fine flecks applied consistently and delicately to evoke atmosphere as well as substances, but it lacks both the variety and energy of Bruegel’s own technique, despite building upon his

323 (pages 398–399) Joos de Momper(?) Storm at Sea Detail of plate 347 324 (opposite) Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) The Kermis, c. 1635 Detail of plate 344 325 (below) Jacob Savery, (c. 1565–1603) Rocky Landscape with Castle and River, 1562 Drawing, 7⁄¿¤ × 12⁄¿› in. (19.2 × 31 cm) Graphische Sammlung, Munich (Mielke A42)

401

326 Master of Mountain Landscapes Formerly attributed to Pieter Bruegel Mountain Landscape with River, Village, and Castle Pen and brown ink on laid paper, contours in brown ink, 13‡¿° × 17‹¿° in. (35.7 × 44.6 cm) Morgan Library and Museum, New York (Mielke A1)

402

pieter bruegel

ink style. Yet within this fine drawing, all the Bruegel achievements have been assimilated—particularly his persuasive experience of alpine uplands inserted into the Flemish pictorial formula of the world landscape, which often featured flatlands and riversides, as in Bruegel’s own Large Landscapes (see plate 80). Such outright forgeries strongly suggest—with signature and date inscribed in the same ink—a high demand among collectors for unique graphic works by Bruegel himself, part of an emerging fascination with art collecting that was not limited to paintings but also included drawings as well as prints. Indeed, the appearance of autonomous drawings, unconnected to print or painting use, such as Bruegel’s Painter and His Client or these independent landscapes, seems to be a response by artists themselves to the demands of collectors.‹ Bruegel himself, along with Cornelis Matsys (plate 80), had been one of the first artists to make independent landscape drawings—or any subject, though Bosch had already been a notable pioneer of several finished independent drawings of his own.›

Even more commanding than the Jacob Savery group of landscape drawings, another cluster of large-scale, principally mountainous views, all unsigned drawings, have only recently been reassigned, after being long regarded as masterworks by Bruegel. Their unknown artist has been given the provisional name Master of the Mountain Landscapes.ﬁ Mielke assigns this landscape group to Jacob Savery’s younger brother, Roeland Savery (1576–1639), whose isolated figure groups of peasants and other figures (see below; the “naer het leven” group) formed the first group of drawings to be removed from the Bruegel corpus a generation ago. On the other hand, if Roeland had wanted to mislead later viewers into thinking his works to be authentic Bruegels, one can only wonder why he did not falsify signatures and dates like his brother Jacob. It should be noted that in the next decade, Roeland also became known as a landscape specialist: he was dispatched by Emperor Rudolf II (1558–1612) from his capital in Prague (1606–7) to make elaborate colored drawings of the mountainous settings in his Tyrolean Alps possessions. Those works were later transformed into panel paintings as well as replicated in engravings by Aegidius Sadeler.ﬂ But Roeland Savery’s distinctly personal mountain scenes, however, tend to emphasize close-up views of landscape features, particularly dramatic sights like waterfalls, so they stand apart from the compositions of the Master of the Mountain Landscapes.‡ Another contemporary candidate for the name of this anonymous Master of the Mountain Landscapes is the neglected Peter Stevens (1567–c. 1624), whose work is largely known through his own independent landscape drawings and who, like Roeland Savery, also worked at the court of Rudolf II as early as 1594.° However, either Savery or Stevens, leading landscapists of the next generation, would have had to suppress his own distinctive style in order to simulate Bruegel’s creations, so any definitive attribution of this anonymous, talented draftsman must remain moot (like the still-anonymous Master of the Small Landscapes, see plate 67). Nonetheless, their shared Rudolfine court setting surely provided even more impetus for forgery of Bruegel originals, since the emperor’s insatiable collecting impulse—well attested by Karel van Mander within his various biographies— included focused obsessions for both Dürer and Bruegel and became the basis of the modern Vienna collections.· Highlighting this Mountain Landscapes group, one outstanding drawing, Mountain Landscape with River, Village, and Castle (plate 326), has long been considered exemplary of Bruegel’s own firsthand experience of

the Alps as well as of the artist’s full range of dots and hatchings to suggest both atmosphere and texture in the mounting setting.⁄‚ While clearly its care of execution shows that this drawing was devised as a presentation piece and not as a record of a particular site, this largest and most refined of the mountain scenes has sometimes been assigned a specific topographical location, albeit on slender evidence: the region of the Vorderrhein near St. Gotthard Pass.⁄⁄ Orenstein notes the additional precision delineating the edge of the mountain ridge and the fine parallel hatching of its shadows, less playful than Bruegel’s own marks. Following Martin RoyaltonKisch, she also posits Jacob Savery as the possible author of these works, despite their differences from the overtly forged group and their lack of signatures, but she also

notes the heightened grandeur of the Morgan drawing and related deep Alpine settings. Additionally, several other finely drawn images from this group feature open spaces, which were often taken by previous scholars to be on-site study sketches, enhanced with later refinements: one in Dresden and a pair in the Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth.⁄¤ A creative variation on Bruegel’s towering mountain scenes but composed in a completely distinctive fashion, Mountain Coastal Landscape (plate 327) by Hendrick Goltzius of Haarlem (1558–1617) still features both peaks and riversides. Its penwork, however, features repeated rhythmic calligraphic strokes and a sureness of touch and composition that reveals full artistic mastery. This drawing was created during a period in Goltzius’s career

327 Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) Mountain Coastal Landscape, c. 1595 Pen and brown ink over faint preliminary indications in black chalk on paper, 9⁄¿› × 15 in. (23.5 × 38.3 cm) Morgan Library and Museum, New York

bruegel’s legacy

403

artist monographs

larry silve\

also avai la B le F rom aBBev ille Pr ess

Hieronymus Bosch

By larry silver isbn 978-0-7892-0901-6 $150.00

Caravaggio

second edition By John T. spike isbn 978-0-7892-1059-3 $95.00

Courbet

By ségolène le men isbn 978-0-7892-0977-1 $135.00

Pieter Bruegel

aBou T TH e au THo r

Piete|

Bruegel

Artists’ Self-portraits By omar Calabrese isbn 978-0-7892-0894-1 $135.00 Landscape Painting: A History By Nils Büttner isbn 978-0-7892-0902-3 $135.00

aB Bevi lle P ress 137 varick street New york, Ny 10013 1-800-artbook (in u.s. only) Available wherever ﬁne books are sold visit us at www.abbeville.com Printed in italy

larry silve\

Piete|

Bruegel l a r ry s i lv e r