Historical Figures Codexery

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Pioneer of landscapes and peasant scenes in Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Pieter Brueghel the Elder · via Wikipedia: Pieter Bruegel the Elder · Public domain

His work was highly sought after by wealthy collectors and patrons including Cardinal Granvelle.[1] His genre scenes of peasant life and landscapes often include comic elements and social protest, as seen in works like The Fight Between Carnival and Lent and the engraving Strongboxes Battling Piggybanks.[2][3]

Quick Facts

Birth name
Pieter Bruegel
Born
c. 1525–1530
Birthplace
probably Breda (nowadays The Netherlands)
Died
9 September 1569 (aged 39 to 44)
Place of death
Brussels, Duchy of Brabant, Habsburg Netherlands (nowadays Belgium)
Field
Painting, printmaking
Movement
Dutch and Flemish Renaissance

Facts from the source article.

Life and work

Bruegel's birth date is not documented, but he entered the Antwerp painters' guild in 1551, which suggests he was born between 1525 and 1530.[4] Bruegel became a free master in the Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp in 1551 and soon traveled to Italy, visiting Rome and reaching Reggio Calabria by 1552.[5] He returned to Antwerp by 1555, when his designs for the Large Landscapes were published by Hieronymus Cock.[6] From 1555 until 1563 he lived in Antwerp, mainly designing prints for Cock, with his dated paintings beginning in 1557.[7]

Karel van Mander's biography states that Pieter Coecke van Aelst, an Antwerp painter, was Bruegel's master.[4] Bruegel wed Mayken Coecke in Brussels in 1563, and he spent the rest of his life residing there.[8]

What the cited sources add

Van Mander seems to assume Bruegel came from a peasant background, but modern scholars conclude he was a townsman and highly educated.[9][10] Bruegel's friend Abraham Ortelius described him in 1574 as "the most perfect painter of his century"[11] Lodovico Guicciardini's 1567 account and Karel van Mander's 1604 Schilder-boeck are the two principal early biographical sources for Bruegel.[12] A series of paintings depicting each month of the year was commissioned from Bruegel in 1565 by the Antwerp patron Niclaes Jonghelinck.[13]

By the 21st century, only five paintings from that series are known to have survived.[13]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Grove; Orenstein, 8–9. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Franits, 203. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Mayor, A. Hyatt (1971). Prints & People: A Social History of Printed Pictures. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 426. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Orenstein, 5; Grove.; Orenstein, 5. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Grove; Orenstein, 204 for the drawing. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Orenstein, 266–267, and following catalogue pages; Grove.; Snyder, 502; Orenstein, 96–97 for one agreed exception; see this British Museum page for another drawing of Roman ruins, perhaps the Colosseum, recently attribu (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Orenstein, 7. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Wied, 9–10. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Orenstein, 57–58; Grove. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Grove.; Orenstein, 57–58; Grove.; Wied, 19–20. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wikipedia, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Snyder, 484; Orenstein, 9–11, 59. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  12. Wikipedia, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Grove; van Mander's Bruegel biography in Dutch; Wied, 15–18 gives a full English translation. Guicciardini was an Italian who had lived in Antwerp since at leas; "den welcken is geboren niet wijt van Breda, op een Dorp geheeten Brueghel, welcks naem hy met hem ghedraghen heeft, en zijn naecomelinghen ghelaten."; Grove: "none of the three Flemish villages of that name is close to Breda".; Wied, 18, says two of the villages (Groot Bruegel and Cleyn Bruegel) are close to B (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  13. Wikipedia, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gibson, Walter S. (1977). Bruegel. The World of Art Library. Thames and Hudson pp. 147–148.; Joseph Koerner. 2018. Bosch and Bruegel. Princeton Univ. Press. Page 345.; Joseph Koerner. 2018. Bosch and Bruegel. Princeton University Press. Page 345. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Pieter Bruegel the Elder (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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