Pieter I Bruegel

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1525/1530 - 1569) is a Brabant painter, draughtsman, etcher and print designer. Despite his fame as an artist, we know precious little about the man himself. A great deal of factual information is lacking for us, such as his precise year of birth, place of birth, information about his education and his residence until 1563. Did he have substantial means and what was his place in society? How was he established in life? These are essential questions that remain unanswered.

It is presumed that Bruegel was born in the Netherlands in Breugel, Breda or possibly in Antwerp, Bree or Brogel around 1525 - 1530. According to the artists' biographer Karel van Mander (Schilder-Boeck, 1604), Bruegel was a student of the multifaceted court painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502 - 1550), who was in control of one of the most important studios of the time in Antwerp. Van Mander explains that Bruegel's youngest son, Jan Bruegel I (1568 - 1625), was schooled in the art of miniatures by Mayken Verhulst, the wife of Pieter Coecke van Aelst. It is not inconceivable that given his talent for detailed work that Bruegel was also initiated into this art form during his stay in the studio.

In 1551 he enters into the Antwerp St Lucas Guild. His earliest surviving drawings appear shortly thereafter. From 1553 to 1554 (possibly already since 1552), Bruegel is present in Italy, where he becomes acquainted with the remains of the classical antiquity and the Renaissance. His landscape drawings originate from this period. Beginning in 1555, landscapes were brought onto the market in print form by the publisher Hieronymus Cock (1518 - 1570). Between 1556 and 1558, the print series The Seven Deadly Sins appears - a milestone in his oeuvre.

Only beginning in 1557 do we see a picture of Bruegel as painter. Around 1561-1562, the artist designs fewer prints and devotes himself fully to painting. Bruegel moves to Brussels and, by 1563, is certainly settled there. He is married there the same year in the Church of Our Lady of the Chapel (Kapellekerk) to Mayken Coecke (ca. 1545 - 1578), the daughter of his presumed master teacher Pieter Coecke. They have two children that shall become successful painters in their own right: Pieter Bruegel the Younger (1564 - 1638) and Jan Bruegel the Elder. Both were heavily influenced by their father to a large extent. In a short period of time, between 1563 and Bruegel's death in 1569, at least 28 paintings appear.

Pieter Bruegel was a keen painter, but was not the pictor doctus (or learned painter) as some would like to see him being. It is accepted, however, that he did indeed maintain contacts with humanists. In that regard, there is, for example, his friendship with the geographer, artist and humanist Abraham Ortelius (1527 - 1598). Bruegel's intellectual background and developmental environment is complex and layered. He drew inspiration from the culture of the folk and rhetoricians' stage.

Irony, self-mockery and (visual) humour are determining for his imagery. Here too, the Christian heritage and the humanistic morality also play a role. From the tradition of the allegories, Bruegel vividly presents human shortcomings. We see the unmistakeable influence of Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1450 - 1516) that denounced the consequences of sin and debauchery. Ludovico Guicciardini called Bruegel a second Bosch in 1567. Giorgio Vasari, Domenicus Lampsonius and Karel van Mander also echoed this suggestion. According to Van Mander, Bruegel got the nickname of 'Pier den Drol (Pieter the Joker)' because of his predilection for Bosch-like 'spoockerijen en drollen'. Until the end of the 19th century, the image of the 'second Bosch' retained him a place amongst the greatest artists of all time.

For centuries, Bruegel's reception was founded upon the knowledge of his graphics, because his paintings remained in the anonymity of private collections for a long time. Afterwards, there followed a trend towards nationalistic recuperation: Bruegel as a Flemish peasant painter. The image of Bruegel as being a 'pure' Flemish painter is incorrect. One can already refer to the motifs and image types of the peasant and carnival scenes that are drifting over from the German printmaking. Specifically Barthel and Sebald Beham, Hans Weiditz and Jacob Binck were important in that respect. Moreover, people exaggerate terribly when one refers to him in the words of Van Mander as Boerenbruegel (Peasants' Bruegel). In retrospect, there are scarcely but a few iconic peasant scenes known. In Bruegel's surviving paintings, for that matter, more religious stories appear than the thematic of peasants.

In conjunction with that, his anti-Renaissance image in not founded. The Venetian art of painting was determined by its landscape art, a genre in which he excelled and with which he was influential. Moreover, Michelangelo (1475 - 1564), Raphael (1483 - 1520) and Giulio Romano (1499 - 1546), amongst others, were via the Netherlandish artists directly or indirectly important for the greater monumentality in Bruegel's figure types towards the end of his career.

The actual situation of a substantial number of works is not yet satisfactorily explained. Some art historians emphasise all-too one-sided the veiled political, religious and social critique in Bruegel's works. One must consider with this that his patrons were quite often from the governing and financial elite. Proper demonstrable critique is limited to only a few works that were intended for the free market.

Amongst his patrons was Nicolaes Jonghelinck, an Antwerp merchant and art collector. At a given moment Jonghelinck owned sixteen paintings by Bruegel, amongst which were The Tower of Babel (Vienna or Rotterdam), Christ carrying the Cross (presumably Vienna) and the series of paintings The Twelve Months. Furthermore, we know other commissioners like the Antwerp master of coins Jean Noirot (owned five Bruegels), the humanist and geographer Abraham Ortelius, who owned the grisaille Death of Mary, and Cardinal Antoine Perrenot Granvelle, Archbishop of Mechelen and advisor to the court in Brussels.

Pieter Bruegel was especially ingenious both with regards to form and content. His visual sources are diverse and numerous, but were never carried out as being clichéd.

The influential Bruegel was a shrewd observer of the condition humaine, which he processed with his outstanding technical abilities in a personal manner. Human beings and their actions and the pastoral world that surrounded them form the essence of Bruegel's art.

Circa 1525 - 1530?
Pieter Bruegel I was probably born in the Netherlands in Bruegel, Breda or possibly in Antwerp, Bree or Brogel in this period.

Circa 1545 - 1550
During this time, Bruegel is possibly a student of Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502 -1550) and possibly is trained as a miniature painter by Mayken Verhulst, who was married to Pieter Coecke van Aelst.

1551

Bruegel is registered in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke.

1552

Bruegel's earliest dated and preserved drawings come from this year.

He works together with Peeter Baltens (1527/1528 - 1584) on a now-lost altarpiece for the chapel of the glove-maker's guild in the St Rombouts Cathedral in Mechelen. Allegedly, the contribution of Bruegel is limited to the grisailles on the canvases, with the likenesses of the Saints Gummarus and Rombout.

1553 - 1554

Bruegel finds himself in Italy. Possibly he was already there in 1552. The ability to discover first-hand the art from the classical Antiquity and the achievements of the Italian Renaissance were high on the list of desires for the painters from the northern countries. It is possible that the artist was accompanied by the painter Maerten de Vos (1532 - 1603) and the sculptor Jacques Jonghelinck (1530 -1606), the brother of his first patron Nicolaes Jonghelinck.

Bruegel probably travelled via Southern France over the Alps and almost certainly reached Calabria, the tip of Italy's 'boot'. The drawing View of Reggio di Calabria, which dates later (ca. 1560) is, and served as, a pre-study for a print, and must have been made from the sketches that he made there on site.

1553 - 1554

Bruegel is most likely situated in Rome. He has contacts there with the miniaturist painter Giulio Clovio (1498 - 1578).

Some 20 landscape drawings that came about during his Italian journey have been preserved.

1555

Bruegel is back in Antwerp and is working intensively with artist and print publisher Hieronymus Cock (1518 - 1570). Possibly they had already been in contact just before Bruegel's Italian journey.

A preliminary series of prints with landscapes is commercialised in Antwerp.

1555 - 1565

Cock launches the so-called 'grand landscapes', a monumental series of twelve mountain landscapes (a combination of etching and engraving), of which two are possibly not after Bruegel's design. Bruegel designs the series (with View of the Tiber near Tivoli, amongst others) and Joannes and Lucas van Doetecum provide for the graphics. At this moment, the artist still signs his work with 'brueghel'. Somewhat later he shall sign with 'bruegel'. The series confirms Bruegel as a print designer and landscape artist.

1556

Bruegel makes the masterly drawing The Big Fish Eat Little Fish. The time-honoured saying was engraved by Pieter van der Heyden (ca. 1530 - after 1572) in 1557 and published by Hieronymus Cock.

1556 - 1558

The artist draws the seven preparatory drawings for the series of prints, The Seven Deadly Sins. Subsequently, the drawings are engraved by Pieter van der Heyden. The series is one of the axes of the surviving oeuvre of Bruegel. A counterpart to the series is created by the somewhat younger series, The Seven Virtues (1559 - 1560). The series is also made in conjunction with The Last Judgement (drawing and engraving) from 1558.

1557

Bruegel's earliest dated and preserved paintings originate in this year.

1558

Bruegel draws the allegory Elck, a complex and many-layered commentary on the fruitless quest of humanity at the religious, intellectual and material level. Probably in the same year, Pieter van der Heyden engraves the composition that is published by Hieronymus Cock.

In this year as well the drawing The Alchemist comes about, which is engraved by Philips Galle (1537 - 1612) for Hieronymus Cock. (Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin)

Bruegel paints Twelve Proverbs, consisting of twelve boards that later are mounted upon panels. (Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp)

1559

Bruegel creates the painting The Proverbs. (Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin)

1559 - 1560

The series of The Seven Virtues comes from this period. (Engraved by Philips Galle, published by Hieronymus Cock)

1560

With respect to themes, The Children's Games is innovative. (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)

In 1560, Bruegel ventures uniquely on an etching of his own hand: The Hare Hunt. The preparatory drawing is preserved. (Institut Néerlandais, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris)

1561 - 1562

Beginning in this time, Bruegel produces fewer print designs. He concentrates on his painting career. In 1561, Bruegel paints Dulle Griet (Mad Meg). (Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp)

1562

The small oil-paint panel, The Suicide of Saul, comes into being. (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) Bruegel models landscape and figures with colour and light. The swirling The Archangel Michael Slaying the Apocalyptic Dragon is made. (Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels)

1562?

Pieter Bruegel moves to Brussels. It is well established that he is settled in Brussels in 1563.

The Triumph of Death is Bruegel's most sombre work. Rather unusual is the lack of any hope of salvation in the afterlife. (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid) In the literature it is compared on the stylistic and physical relationships (measurements) with The Archangel Michael Slaying the Apocalyptic Dragon and Dulle Griet.

1563

Pieter Bruegel marries Mayken Coecke in the Brussels's Church of our Lady of the Chapel (Kapellekerk). She is the daughter of his master teacher Pieter Coecke van Aelst.

1563 - 1568

From this period and up until his death in 1568, there are still 29 surviving paintings.

1563 -1564

Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564 - 1638) is born.

The panel with The Adoration of the Kings from the collection of the National Gallery (London) is completed in this year. Noteworthy for this period are the monumental figures and the low point of perspective, by which the viewer is drawn into the painting.

In 1564, Bruegel paints Christ Carrying the Cross (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). It involves the second largest surviving painting and contains more than 150 figures. Bruegel's first patron, Nicolaes Jonghelinck, had it in his possession in 1566.

1565

The Twelve Months (series of probably six panels, of which five had survived) are produced. The panels are often viewed as the highpoint in Bruegel's oeuvre. The Antwerp merchant and art collector Nicolaes Jonghelinck orders the series. Haymaking is found in the Collection Roudnice Lobkowicz in Nelahozeves (Czech Republic). The Harvesters makes up a part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The three other panels, The Return of the Herd, Hunters in the Snow and The Gloomy Day belong to the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

1566

Marie, the daughter of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Mayken Coecke, is born.

1567

Ludovico Guicciardini (1521 - 1589) calls Bruegel a 'second Hieronymus Bosch' in his book, Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi, altrimenti detti Germania inferiore.

1568

Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568 - 1625) is born. The Peasant and the Birdnester is made (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). Artists' biographer Giorgio Vasari (1511 - 1574) praises Bruegel in his Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori.

1569

Pieter Bruegel dies in Brussels. His son, Jan Brueghel the Elder creates a commemorative plaque for the Kapellekerk, where his father was interred, which is embellished by a painting by Peter Paul Rubens (1577 - 1640). Later, the painting (The Delivery of the Keys to Peter) is sold and replaced by a copy.

1574

Abraham Ortelius (1527 - 1598) composes an ode to the attention of the deceased painter in his Liber Amicorum. He calls Bruegel the most accomplished painter of his time.

1578

Bruegel's wife Mayken Coecke dies.

1676

David Teniers II (1610 - 1690) renews the commemorative stone for Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The memorial stone is still to be found in the Kapellekerk in Brussels.