The Micro Macro Cosmos of Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Micro & Macro Cosmos of Pieter Bruegel the Elder
The New Atelier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9bAVtrqNSs&t=3579s

Randall J Digiuseppe
Artist, Instructor. Lecturer
randatelier@gmail.com
www.randalleum.com
Instagramm: randallastro


(2973) The Micro & Macro Cosmos of Pieter Bruegel the Elder - YouTube

Oct 2, 2021

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Wonderfully illuminating, thank you so much!





The Micro & Macro Cosmos of Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Randall J Digiuseppe
Artist, Instructor. Lecturer
randatelier@gmail.com
www.randalleum.com
Instagramm: randallastro

Good evening thank you for joining us for another of our tele artworks online lectures
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before we begin i should like to give you some information about the atelier at flower field a 501 3c not-for-profit
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organization we are currently in our fall one session and our fall 2 session begins the week
0:17
of october the 11th we offer a variety of fine art drawing and painting classes in a variety of
0:23
mediums both online and in studio we offer classes in illustration and digital painting as well and we have a
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variety of paintings on sale in our online art shop details can be found on our website the atelierflowerfield.org
0:39
and our current exhibition is a solo show of works by our instructor bill graf so i would urge you to come and
0:45
have a look it's a wonderful exhibition the gallery is open nine to five monday through saturday
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tonight's lecture is being sponsored by first republic private wealth management
0:57
and tonight our instructor
Randall J Digiuseppe
 
is presenting a lecture the micro and macro cosmos of bruegel the
1:04
elder we welcome him this evening and hope you enjoyed tonight's talk if you wish to ask questions please post
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them in the chat room i shall now hand over to randall d giuseppe thank you
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thank you
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good evil thank you and thank you for having me back to uh talk about who is
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my favorite artist of all time it turns out peter bruegel the elder
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today's class is essentially not going to be a class but a lecture on
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what i consider his most important works he probably has the most influence on my
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work than any other artist and we'll we'll be discussing why we'll
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be taking a deep dive on uh several of his works uh you'll see that he's uh
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he's a very complicated and extremely talented artist that was active in the 1500s
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in northern europe
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presented by me if you're looking to reach out to me that's my website you can reach me at this email and my in
2:19
my instagram handle as well we'll just get into uh
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who peter bruegel was again he was an artist that was uh
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active in northern europe in the uh middle part of the 1500s he was born
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we're guessing around 1525 in the netherlands probably in the town of breda that can't be confirmed
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uh he died in 1569 in the town of antwerp
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his formative years were in the city of antwerp and the peak of his career uh
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we'll be speaking about in the second part of the lecture will be or we're in the city of brussels
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his catalog to date we have 42 panels that are attributed to him that number seems to bounce back and
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forth some pieces we think were made by his sons uh or were master copies and then every
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now and then we'll find one uh that we thought well there's a one painting
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that was discovered not too long ago that's part of this collection but there are over 40 paintings that are
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attributed to him uh 61 drawings we're not going to be looking at all 42. they're just uh too dense
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his signature for those of you who are uh not familiar with his uh
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his signature is spelled without an h that's when we know we're talking about
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peter breugel the patriarch peter borgel the elder it's always spelled b-r-u-e-g-e-l
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uh when you start saying b-r-u-e-g-h-e-l we're referring to his sons either jan or peterborough the
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younger and this is uh his signature that was unearthed on a painting that he did called the
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fall of the rebel angels should point out just how unique an
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artist he was we're not looking at a work by bruggle but what was considered a typical uh
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piece that you would see by his contemporaries while artists like clue a were painting uh the monarchs and
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nobilities of europe such as francois the first here by jean-claude
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and titian in italy were painting heroic scenes from classical antiquity
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such as the demigods and and deities such as
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venus and adonis as seen here or uh
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pontormo during the deposition of the cross the virgin mary and and uh jesus being deposed from the
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cross most of the artwork at the time were leading towards portraits of nobility
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scenes from classical heroic antiquity and uh biblical scenes and lives of the saints
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roygal had a more earthly approach to his work he seemed
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to have a stronger sensibility to what was going on in the common world and with the common
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man this is a a sample of a piece of his you can see the stark contrast from what we saw earlier
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this is a winter scene with bird trap i won't get too deep into this but this
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is a uh what would you consider a quintessential bruegel escape a couple of interesting characteristics
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you'll see about bruegel he he seems to have an infatuation with
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characters with their backs turned to you uh i i don't know a single artist in western art that has more backs turned
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to the viewer than bruegel but at the same time they're highly activated and
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they're going about their day and we see so much humanity even though they're not
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toward toward the viewer he also had a strong
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appreciation for the vernacular and again the common life for the common man
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here's an example of a piece he did a painting called children's games
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nothing heroic here no demigods no saints no monarchs just over 200
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children playing an assortment of 80 different games that were popular at the time
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so you get you already get a sense of where bruegel's mind was as opposed to
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where the other artists were were going i'm going to provide this viewing list
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so you have an opportunity to take a
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frame shot of this part one of this lecture we're going to be discussing the early stages of his
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career we'll be looking at three drawings and two paintings and then we'll be taking a
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five minute break if you have any questions if you please post them uh when we get back from the break i'll
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answer them so the first portion of this will be looking at uh some of his ink paintings from his trip from italy and
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our an allegorical drawing flemish proverbs and the triumph of
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death and then when we get back from the break i'll answer a few questions and we'll be getting into
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uh one painting from his season cycle the peasant wedding
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the land of cocaine and the last painting he did before he passed away uh magpie on the gallows
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so let's just jump right into his early life uh by the way this is uh a detail
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of children's games i just thought this was rather cute they're showing these young peasant children playing games
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with uh horse droppings that they've collected sort of a bit curious but i guess when
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you're a young peasant you just make do with whatever you can get a hold on
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peter bruegel's world was very different from hieronymus bosch's now from my previous lecture we were talking about
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bosch and in the following generation roygal was seen as the heir apparent to bosch quite
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often his work was mistaken for bosch but they were from completely different worlds
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the world that bruegel grew up in was at the high renaissance it was the
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post-new world uh the there were changes in the topography of
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the earth the geography it was post-protestant reformation there were splits in the church and there were
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debates about uh where the religious direction of europe and leadership is going to be and there was also a book
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that was published that started the ball rolling in academia by a fellow uh by the name of uh
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a polish priest by the name of nicholas copernicus uh who wrote the revolution abyss in 1543
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it was published it wasn't very well read in fact a lot of people jokingly say that it's
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the greatest book never read i gave it a shot it's a very dense book but
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it started the dialogue uh as far as where man's place was in the universe and it started to change
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drastically so there were all of these seismic political and philosophical and scientific uh
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changes going on in in the world that bruegel was uh growing up and living in
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i should also point out that the netherlands at the time of uh during borgo's lifetime uh was under the
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rule of a foreign occupation spain became a massive superpower
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especially after the discovery of the new world it became flush with uh cash with the uh
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exploration of the new world and the exploitation of some of the resources there and they ended up ruling
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the netherlands with an iron fist
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now as i mentioned earlier broyle was born in 1525 maybe 15 30. we're not
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entirely clear what town he was born in possibly breda he showed some artistic uh talent and uh
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his parents encouraged him as a teenager to move to the city of antwerp in 1545 so he was
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about 15 years to 20 years old when he moved there anterp was a very important
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cosmopolitan city in europe at the time just to give you a little uh geography lesson here uh this
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is the region that royal grew up in uh in modern day belgium uh at the same at this time the
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netherlands and belgium were kind of interlinked so you can see where it is in relation to italy and london it's pretty far up
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in the north sea topographically it's called the netherlands because it
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well it's translates into the lowlands over 50 percent of the region is below sea level
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which means that there is there are not a lot of hills uh it's all it's prone to a lot of flooding
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if you've ever been in the netherlands you'll see that it is rife with windmills because there's very little wind break and there are tons of canals
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and waterways and dams and this is the topography that burgle grew up in
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he grew up in well he started his career in the city of antwerp which was
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considered at the time the florence of the north it had a population of over 100 000
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uh to give you a sense of comparison that is double the population of london
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or paris so antwerp had a population that was uh higher than london in paris
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combined it was also a very important commercial port it had a
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deep water port there was a lot of money coming in from the new world there was sugar coming in from
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from the americas there was uh silk spices and cotton coming in from the east and from the north in in the
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baltics there was lumber and grain and wool coming in from england and it was a
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central banking system so antwerp was flush with cash someone go as far as to
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say that antwerp might have been the florence well florence may be the antwerp of the south
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as you can see it's about 40 miles north of brussels and 60 miles from bosch's hometown tokendosh there
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this is modern day antwerp not much has changed many of these buildings stood when bruegel uh came there as a
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as a young inspired artist this is a painting of antwerp in the
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year that bruegel arrived as you can see it was a hustling bustling city
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when he arrives in antwerp he's apprenticed by a print shop master peter
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coke van elst his first master was probably a woman and that was megan velhur bel verhulse
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excuse me and she was the wife of peter co and they were partners in this
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successful uh britain illumination shop and this is where broco got his first
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formal training uh she and he taught bruegel to become a miniaturist
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and he was very good at it and uh made a pretty good name for himself
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and ultimately uh his skill set was beyond anything they could uh they could teach
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him so they introduced him to the most successful print maker in the region at the time
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and that was hieronymus [ __ ] he ran a studio called the four winds
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and he produced on mass prince of italian style and italian landscapes it was very a very
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italian themed uh studio
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it was the flavor at the time with that all that cash the demand for
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art in antwerp was sky high so there was no better place for a northern artist to
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go than antwerp aramis [ __ ] uh took bruegel on as an apprentice and
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bruegel honed his skill further and hieronymus thought it was a good idea
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that bruegel despite his skill set and his talent go to italy to learn from the
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italian masters these here are prince from uh hieronymus studio very
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typical that you would see a lot of roman ruins
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iconic saints uh scenes from the bible uh this could very well be a fresco in italy you can see that hieronymus
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signature is down here uh the way the prints were made back then well there were drawings that were
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done concentrating exclusively online as you can see this is important because uh this is
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where bruegel really shined in his drawings he would be taught to
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work in a very intricate detail and these lines would be transferred onto
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a piece of metal which they would be engraved in probably a piece of copper or brass it would be treated with a
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a mild acid and then those channels would be filled with ink a piece of paper would be
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rolled over them and you would get these beautiful uh prints and prints were very appealing at the
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time because they were portable uh they were mass producible and they were uh well they were a lot less expensive than
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oil paintings and they provided a certain degree of escapism
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1552 uh we're not sure who fronted the money but hieronymus is a good possibility but
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there were some sponsors that decided to send bruegel to italy to learn from the masters
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he spends two years in italy meeting with other artists no doubt uh studying in rome and in
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florence he goes down as far as naples he comes back from italy these are
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things that he probably would have seen as you can see very similar to what was shown showing up in hieronymus's prince
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but in a way the uh the trip backfires roygal almost dismisses the italian
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style completely he returns to the netherlands completely transformed and not in the manner of
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which his master expects he doesn't come back a figurative artist what really captured borgel's
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imagination was nature on his way to and fro italy
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he saw the swiss alps and the apennines are these massive uh mountains snow
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capped terrains and the forests and these bavarian villages on the way and we were
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treacherous but it just captured his imagination like nothing else that rome could
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what i'm showing your images that were most likely seen along his trip and these trips took many weeks sometimes
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many months depending on the season and the terrain and you got to bear in mind that when he
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was doing these prints well he was looking at these um he was sketching these and um
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just see it from his perspective this is a man who grew up in an environment that looked like this
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and most people the vast majority of people um never travel more than 10 to 20 miles
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from where they lived so to go from this to this had a profound effect on his imagination
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and a profound effect on his artwork and uh much to hieronymus's disappointment uh
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it ended up being a happy accident because what roygal did was he used his newly found skill as a miniaturist
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and created drawings of the mountainous landscape and he would uh
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provide a certain level of escapism so this is one of the first drawings by bruegel that
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well they're credited to him as you see this is the mountain landscape it's at the british museum
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um it's only nine by 13 inches uh it's all done exclusively in line and
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ink it's it's red it's brown mr ink on on white paper you use the quill and a number of different weights and probably
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different thin thicknesses of quill
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but this is where bruegel's mind was when he was doing this as you can see these fantastic italian
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landscapes and villas he's already showing a bit of roy gelling here this looks italian on the
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bottom left with the uh figure leaning on the rock here but here's one figure already with the back turns to
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the to the viewer this is a detail this is probably one by
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three inches but you can see that bruegel has this amazing ability to
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provide a great wealth of detail and not get lost in the detail it could still he still provides a
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cohesive composition despite
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all of that this drawing here is actually here in new york city
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it's at the morgan library a mountain landscape with a river village and castle it was from the same
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trip this was also transferred into a print uh i
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i actually took it on to make a master copy of this with graphite and silver point uh the
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morgan curator brought it out to me and the first thing i thought was good god what did i get myself into
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it took me over a month and change i had to actually go back because i didn't have pencils that were small or sharp
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enough again when you look at this piece this is starting to show you where bruegel's
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mind was going this is where bruegel really starts to shine
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he starts to fuse these fantasy landscapes from his trip from through the alps and
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he starts adding flemish villages in them which created a great deal of mass
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appeal these prints became a very huge success and very hard to draw by the way and
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this is all done in line this was all meant to be transferred to a piece of metal this is a detail
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uh i didn't notice this when i was looking at the actual drum but there's actually a figure here but this you can see that he's not a
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lazy artist there's not a single piece a stroke a pen stroke or or brush stroke
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that that that's wasted off to the right he has a castle with uh
20:28
a boat drifting off he also adds by by his use of weight
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you'll notice going back to the other one even at this with this small drawing
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just using line he has a certain level of atmospheric perspective there's more contrast with the foreground and then it
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becomes less uh it becomes more subtle as you get into the distance and then it almost fades to this whisper of ink in the
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distance so while he was making a living doing
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these um landscape prints that were highly successful he
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also did a series of allegorical works uh many of them i picked out one
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of them there were dozens of them but this is one that's probably his most famous this is a drawing that he did that would be turned into a print
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uh uh an allegory called big fish eat little fish uh basically the proverb that the uh
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uh that might is right and the it's and it's uh the the strong survive in
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the strong lead and they you can see the hierarchy here as it's going on that the big fish are eating little fish
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here's a good idea here this older fellow here is actually
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showing this young boy this lesson in life that big fish eat little fish but there's something and
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you can see here how um there's an influence no doubt that bosch had on on bruegel at the time
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these fantastic beasts you've got a flying uh fish up here you've got this
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character over here with the legs so those bipedal fish but what's interesting here is that
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there's more to the story than uh who's the mightiest of the fish uh this
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is a very curious composition because here we have the biggest fish of
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them all but he's beached and when the fish is all out of the water no matter how big they are they're
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utterly powerless so what's happening here is
22:31
well who who are truly the big fish in this picture we have this one guy he's on a ladder he's ready to run this
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through and you also have this one fellow here that's disembowelling official leasing all the creatures that this large fish
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ate so who is in fact the big fish humanity
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the fish well there's also a hint here as well this thing here
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this symbol i'm going to circle here that's called the globus cruciger
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it's actually a medieval symbol of christian authority one could argue
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that what he's saying is the biggest fish of them all no matter how big you grow as a fish
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you still answer to the church now whether he's sympathetic to this or not or whether he's just pointing out a
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matter of fact is uh is debatable now this was done in 1566
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so you notice that there's a signature here says bruegel probably not written by him
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uh he didn't spell his name that way he didn't write in that penmanship either but this is a curious thing to point out
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and also showing you the detail on this eight and a half by eleven this fantastic uh
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drama playing out in the in the back and here you're seeing the same thing a large beach fish and this large legion of people are ready to run the fish
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through this is the print that was made from that drawing as you can see
23:57
and this made him uh well it made him pretty well to do
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there's some embellishments here uh the most interesting embellishment here is the signature if you look at the
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bottom left here somebody put down the signature hieronymus bosch now i'm not sure how boring would have responded to this but
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this was a common error back then by his contemporaries that borgel was was
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the second generation of bosh and quite often his work was mistaken for hirano's bosh but this was bruegel through and through
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these are examples of bosch's work that we would see that were typical or these are just pieces of triptychs and several
24:36
pieces of separate works extentation st anthony what made bosch bosch and what bruegel
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shared with it high horizon lines highly activated figures lots of
24:48
apocalyptic views of of uh hell on earth
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but that's really where the similarity ends bruegel had again more vernacular more
25:01
earthy more humanistic concerns in work
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after his success with printing he almost concentrates he starts to concentrate on painting he starts to
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fuse what he learned in italy i guess it's the scale of the pieces because looking at miniatures tend to be a
25:20
challenge uh they're not the same experiences if you were looking at a large painting
25:27
so bruegel takes it upon himself to see how many allegories rather than separate prints
25:33
can he make on a large-scale print on a large-scale painting so he makes a
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painting rather than a print pointing out that he was probably
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encouraged by uh nicholas younger link nicholas younger link is a name you're going to get very familiar with he was
25:50
borgel's most important patron and supporter and would uh would commission to do some of his most
25:56
incredible work this is an example of uh
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this challenge it's been it was called originally the blue cloak but it's actually called well
26:06
we've titled it flemish proverbs it was done in 1559 it looks like a hectic day
26:12
in any flemish village but it's actually 200 plus characters uh participating in over 100 flemish
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proverbs and sayings some of them were very familiar with again this is not a heroic scene this is just common people
26:26
doing common well some of them are just doing bizarre things but these are all sayings that we may be familiar with for
26:32
instance banging your head against the wall on the bottom left here throwing the blue cloak over your
26:39
husband she's taking him as the cuckold she's cheating on him
26:45
it's all in the cards a pillow biter in flemish history was considered a hypocrite
26:51
and a common flemish uh citizen would know what these what these meant
26:58
it's another detail uh sorting feathers in the wind we have i guess a similar
27:04
uh analogy would be uh shoveling sand off a beach
27:10
he's burning down the house to keep himself warm it's kind of like cutting your nose off to this fight your
27:15
face this guy's killing two flies with once swatter
27:21
even the distance just to show you all all the way back here again there's there's no wasted space in a bruegel
27:27
piece there's there are proverbs all the way to the end of the horizon here we have keep an eye on the sale
27:33
play on words always keep an eye on the sale he craps on the gallows meaning he
27:39
throws he doesn't care what the consequences of his actions are another proverb the blind leading the
27:45
blind now mind you these are these are in the very very distant background and
27:51
this is actually a proverb as well but the journey does not end when you see the bell tower in this fire meaning
27:57
it's more there's more to it than just seeing it you actually have to get there
28:04
this is not a painting of borgo but this is an important figure in bordeaux's life and everybody else in holland at
28:11
the time or the netherlands rather it also affected holland this is king philip ii
28:17
he was the new sheriff in town uh he was the ruler of again the heir
28:24
apparent the ruler of ruled spain and which by default made him the ruler of the netherlands he had
28:30
three passions making lots of money collecting beautiful art and tormenting who he considered
28:38
enemies of the church his punishments were often public uh they
28:44
were severe they were meant to be traumatic and uh he put the screws to antwerp
28:50
which happened to be a place that was considered a religiously tolerant place they had catholics with protestants it
28:56
was not uncommon to see uh citizens from the far east or the middle east uh
29:03
you were not it would not be a surprise to see somebody of african descent or asian
29:08
descent in the ports of antwerp it was that rich the money talked and people came from all over the globe
29:14
but uh phillip uh had a mission to crush the uh the protestant movement in europe and he
29:22
did it uh in very creative and very terrible ways
29:27
he would uh ramp up the spanish inquisition uh often the punishments were public and severe and meant to be
29:34
traumatic and terrible and bruegel was no doubt exposed to all of these
29:39
atrocities and uh it's safe to say that he responded to
29:44
this uh with one of his paintings one of his most famous paintings that happened to be in the prado which
29:50
ironically i'm not sure and it's no way to confirm this that this painting
29:55
the triumph of death which is about four and a half feet four and a half by
30:01
four and a half feet uh is at the prado museum for the longest time for centuries it was
30:06
mistaken to be a hieronymous bosch for obvious reasons but as we look at it
30:12
further and this is where we take our deepest dive in our first painting this is boy galion from top to bottom
30:20
unlike bosch this there is no redemption here
30:26
there there's there are no demons here this is just death in its rawest form i
30:33
mean it's death there's no hierarchy and death it's almost like this hive mentality there's this large collective
30:39
there are no demons that what's attacking you know everybody that's alive are our human skeletons decomposing figures
30:46
they're all dead they're just an army of the dead no demons there is one aspect
30:52
of a demon but they're passive it's a bit odd that they put this in the center
30:57
if you look here you're looking at a barren landscape everything is being destroyed
31:02
this may be a response to what king philip was doing in antwerp at the time
31:08
bottom left detail we see a king trying to pick the pocket of the dead knight who got who has the
31:14
upper hand because he's going through the king's treasure this uh figure of death is holding an
31:22
hourglass to taunt the king just to show him who's in charge to the right
31:28
we're looking that death doesn't discriminate whether you're a peasant or whether you're from the clergy
31:33
here we're looking at a woman who is no doubt deceased and this child is deceased and this dog is deceased it's
31:39
just there's just death there's no hell that's another interesting thing about
31:44
the bruegel painting is this isn't this isn't hell on earth or this or a us
31:52
some supernatural afterlife it's just death in its most raw form death that you we would see
31:58
probably uh well minus the skeletons but we that you would see in real life
32:03
this has an echo of the hay wayne this man is tied up and having his throat cut
32:09
i'm going from left to right on the fourth round to the right we see a number of fools
32:16
all of these guys are considered fools here's a knight feudally trying to uh fight death off
32:22
here's another fool who thinks that he can actually run under the table and avoid death that way
32:27
then you have these two lovers singing singing to themselves and just ignoring it all together
32:33
but death doesn't ignore them in fact he's accompanying them as they're making music
32:40
middle ground we're seeing more of these legions and then
32:45
atrocious images of death and you've noticed there's no hierarchy
32:50
there's no king of death they're all pretty much the same rank
32:57
if one could say there is a a leader i guess you could say this is the grim reaper but it's hard to tell there's no
33:03
crown there's nothing he's on a decomposing horse and he's corralling all of these terrified living
33:10
uh victims into this what seems to be a coffin or or a
33:15
threshold leading to well their their fate at the other end
33:22
it's very similar well this it brings up images from my childhood of of this
33:28
movie by jason and the argonauts i'm pretty sure that ray harryhausen had this in mind when he was shooting this
33:37
in the distance anything that's living is dying this is a loud painting you have these
33:44
the these skeletons that are blowing horns and they're ringing bells and
33:49
even the the landscape is is is covered with with villages that are
33:54
being destroyed it's just an unstoppable force of nature
34:02
that death is imminent and death wins in the end and in bruegel's time death is
34:08
is terrifying and he would very likely have been exposed to a lot of these images
34:14
because again king philip would have these people hang and leave them on there for days as you can see we leave
34:19
them on pecking wheels and we get ships getting destroyed in the
34:24
back oddly enough king philip liked this
34:30
painting he's the one that brought it back to spain again assuming it was bosh he read it
34:36
differently so he had a different interpretation of this for all i know they were just the death was doing their job they were rounding up heretics who
34:43
knows but it wasn't until much later on they found that it was bruegel's signature uh that this was his work but
34:49
you can see the difference between the bosch and bruegel here just by the um
34:54
the way this is this is set up and where his his priorities are there is no
34:59
redemption there is no afterlife there is just death
35:04
and it comes for us all whether you're a king or a queen a peasant a child elderly
35:10
dog horse so if you ever get a chance to go to the
35:16
prado i'd strongly recommend viewing this piece all of this oppression and torture
35:23
and high taxation from philip ii
35:29
kind of forces borgel's hand he relocates he gets out of antwerp the heat's getting too hot so he moves to
35:36
brussels which is a smaller city it's a very interesting maneuver because
35:41
we're not entirely sure what bruegel's political views were he's not clear about that but uh most people weren't
35:47
because if you were remotely giving a hint that you were opposed to king philip you're
35:53
you would likely have a terrible end he relocates to brussels
36:00
and has a he marries the daughter of his first masters
36:06
you might remember uh the uh [ __ ] van else macon coke the daughter of uh
36:14
the two people that he first met in 1563 shortly after uh his son would be born
36:20
so there was a suspicion that the wedding was rushed in 1563 when he moves to brussels he
36:25
works exclusively and focuses exclusively on painting and that's where we're going to discuss
36:33
his masterworks uh this is when he moves in 1563 that's where his
36:39
career really takes off so we're going to take five minutes here and we're back
36:47
welcome to part two of our talk tonight today we're looking at peter bruegel's
36:53
uh work a brief survey uh on some of his major works
36:59
uh hopefully to pique your interest and wrap your appetite to explore his work further again one of my favorite artists
37:05
if not my favorite artist and uh considered the first humanist artist of the northern
37:11
renaissance his work would influence the vast majority of
37:17
artists in italy and in the north uh for for generations to come
37:23
he's also had a profound effect on my work uh gabby are there any questions uh that
37:28
have been posted before i move forward um i don't see anything in the chat room
37:35
thank you so let's begin so we're looking at
37:40
the in this portion of of the talk uh royal's most prolific
37:46
period the brussels years he moves there in 1563 to to escape the oppression that was
37:52
occurring in antwerp it's a curious move again because uh he brussels also happens to be the house of
37:59
the spanish court so it might have been a situation where he keeps his friends close and his enemies closer
38:05
his his political views are not
38:11
very clear and that was by intent i gather because
38:16
again if there was any hint of sedition philip the second's uh rain would uh
38:22
would deal with you harshly brussels most likely most famously known
38:28
for their brussels sprouts but uh just threw that in there in 1560 uh brussels was a bustling city
38:35
a little smaller than antwerp but again it was a a place where bargle can
38:41
work in some relative peace uh to concentrate on his paintings
38:48
this is an important period uh because in 1565
38:55
bruegel is commissioned by the merchant nicholas youngling to undertake a massive painting project to
39:02

39:07
used them to do a season cycle and a number of biblical scenes uh they would come out to so far as we
39:14
can tell there are 16 surviving paintings from this commission uh he was paid handsomely for it
39:21
and uh they were meant for the private collection of yongaling of the first of which was his season series which
39:29
consisted they believed at the time of 12 paintings now we think there are probably
39:35
they were well we thought they were five and now we were pretty sure that there were six because one of them was discovered recently called saint
39:41
martin's wine which we'll discuss on another day this is bruegel's apartment in brussels
39:47
it still stands it's known as the bargain museum you can actually visit it i've never been i'm dying to
39:53
this is where he spent the last six years of his life and this is where he painted 30 of his 40-ish surviving
40:00
paintings it was in this building so this is where he was the most prolific uh half of those paintings were for this
40:07
one merchant commissioner uh mr youngling
40:12
and of these uh of the series we didn't know what program looked like
40:18
uh but well this is a good guess as any this is an excerpt from a movie uh from 2011
40:25
called the mill and the cross where rucker howard portrays peter bruegel the elder and michael york is nicholas
40:31
youngalink as they start discussing the commission of the road to calvary which was
40:37
what the movie's about it's a beautiful movie it's excruciatingly beautiful so um
40:43
i'll talk about that a little later i figured i'd throw that image in
40:49
this is the first of the uh season series it's the only one we'll be discussing hunters in
40:55
the snow 1565 again this was to go to younger links villa it's roughly
41:01
five and a half feet by four feet i consider this one of the greatest works in western art if i was to have a single
41:07
piece of work in my home this would be it it is housed at the kunsthesaurus museum
41:14
in vienna that's its permanent home now along with the other younger link paintings
41:21
what we are looking at here and this is again part of bruegel's genius is
41:27
bruegel captures man's struggle in dealing with the harshness of the world and nature roygo lived in an era
41:36
at a point in history where there was a mini ice age the winters were very harsh and very long quite often the harvests
41:42
failed and the winters were very rough on those that managed to survive them and life
41:48
was very difficult and what we're looking at here is i believe bruegel's magnum opus
41:54
in my opinion we're looking at man's struggle to carve a living through nature
42:00
dealing with the hardships but along with the hardships he still manages to find joy and play and drama and even
42:07
humor there are not a lot of values in this there are maybe five
42:14
values of of paint mostly
42:20
let's get my laser pointer out here
42:27
you have this icy blue and these well it's over with this overwhelming
42:33
sheet of white but we we need to realize that we're looking at this this is all a a figment
42:39
of fargo's imagination this is a cosmic view this place does not exist this is one of the one of bruegel's strengths is
42:46
that he's not only taken to a place that that you've never been before he's taken to a place that's never been at all
42:54
but we're still enthralled by this because we all have
42:59
we we've all experienced this on on one level or another the harshness of winter you'll notice
43:06
there's a lot of a lot of diagonal aspects of this composition that's thrusting
43:11
the the foreground and and forcing to go down this hill with the hunters into the
43:16
background we'll and we'll take this journey but what we're going to look at first is in the very foreground we're
43:22
looking at hunters returning from the snow and again this element of peter bruegel and the backs being turned to
43:28
the viewer which i find very powerful i mean we're looking at these 300s they're not
43:33
celebrating they look exhausted they look defeated for all of their efforts they have
43:39
for their hunting travels they might have been out there for days one mangy fox their hunting dogs
43:45
seem slightly malnourished and tired themselves as they're coming back from the hunt
43:52
the bottom left he manages to uh infuse some humor into this rough
43:58
landscape here's a dog if anybody has ever owned a dog you know what this dog is doing he's
44:04
doing his business on the left and strangely enough most of the most of the uh characters in bruegel's works do not
44:11
look at the viewer but this guy does it's the only character that actually makes eye contact with the viewer and
44:16
it's this dog and he's almost it's the most reminiscent of the old flintstone cartoons whether it be a smart alec
44:22
animal that would say something at the end of a chore but he's the one character in this
44:28
entire cosmos that's looking back at the viewer
44:33
off to the left to show you again this increased harshness of winter is that you're
44:38
showing that the wind is blowing this flame at a diagonal
44:43
and they're not lighting dead wood they're lighting reeds which means they're running out of wood and
44:50
they're trying to keep something warm well namely themselves but they're very close to
44:56
the building as you can see that they're next to here almost to the point where they can risk
45:01
burning it down so this woman here is collecting some reeds more wreaths to keep it warm and
45:07
they're trying to keep it looks like they're they're doing this delivery they keep the interior warm this guy may be bringing this piece of
45:13
furniture over to break down to burn we're not entirely sure what that what the intentions are there there's a
45:19
child turned away getting close to the flame and above this
45:25
door is this sign turns out
45:30
it is indian hurt it's it's flemish it means the heart hotel this is an inn
45:35
and this inn is showing saint hubert the patron saint of hunters praying to a heart
45:43
as if to appeal to them for a successful hunt which was a rather futile effort as
45:49
you can see and it's not on it it's not by accident that this
45:54
sign is hanging by a single hook i think it's a symbol of just how
45:59
perilous and just how fragile man is in nature how this whole thing can come down at any moment
46:06
as you go down the hill the steep hill you'll notice on the bottom right side
46:12
there's some women playing on a sled you also have this man desperately
46:18
picking berries from a tree these birds are trying to sort out
46:23
and eke out a life in this harsh winter and then you have another woman that's bringing dead wood to either
46:29
a a venue or a home we're not entirely sure but they're going over this very frozen lake
46:36
to go up the frozen lake we see despite all of the despair and the drama in the foreground we see people at play
46:43
we have people that are curling people that are sitting there some kids playing and skating it looks like there's some ice fishing going on there
46:50
fellas playing some form of hockey i'll blow up the detail here
46:57
and mind you these figures are probably at best a half an inch high when you get close to the actual painting
47:03
i always thought these kids were funny they kind of remind me of those parents that overdress their kids in the winter they end up wobbling around like
47:09
penguins the point where they can't stand up then this little humorous incident here
47:14
this fellow here probably took a hockey puck to well a place not too comfortable
47:23
so you have all of these people at play while these hunters are
47:28
bemoaning their unsuccessful hunt off to the left
47:33
so off to the left here in the foreground you might remember this theme here believe it or not this is the first time after 35 years of looking at this
47:40
painting i captured this it's incredible even at this point that and this is again one of bruegel's amazing gifts he
47:46
has this incredible ability to combine a balanced composition with a vast wealth of detail there are paintings for
47:52
the paintings here this is a bird trap and this bird trap is almost triggered so you have this
47:58
line that's taught it's not slack so he's actually it's probably the first time i've ever seen anybody paint somebody that's
48:04
in a house that you can't see but there's an active character back there waiting to set this trap
48:10
and then we follow this horse and carriage up the road
48:15
off to the right here i've noticed this detail for the first time as well this is a hunter shooting a musket
48:21
unsuccessfully at these ducks or birds again i've never seen this before until
48:27
i because i've never seen the painting in person and thank goodness for the internet because we can get some
48:33
incredibly high resolution reproductions since i haven't been to vienna which and i plan on making that trip
48:41
as we go deeper and we recess into the background we start seeing another drama at play here so the
48:48
lake that where everybody was playing was over here we're looking at another drama unfold there is a dire situation these people
48:55
are trying to put out the fireplace that's on fire they're ready to lose their entire house while they're trying to keep warm which was again a common
49:02
tragic occurrence back then off to the left these guys are running across
49:08
trying to get a ladder over there so you can extinguish this fire and if anybody try to extinguish as a fire back in a
49:13
very cold winter you can imagine how difficult that is water doesn't cooperate i also thought
49:19
the way he catches some of these these puddles of ice that are kind of in
49:24
snow and he changes the temperature as well so you've got this blue here we're all very
49:30
very familiar with it with the feeling of this being slushy and this being frozen solid
49:36
it's just incredible genius this is another thing he does is you go
49:41
off into the distance bruegel has a tendency and this is deliberate to force
49:48
us to really pay attention to just how vast and cosmic this space is this tree is in
49:53
the foreground it's the closest one of the closest things to us and in the distance is this other
49:58
flemish port which is the farthest thing in the background and he does this a lot he does this in a painting that's in the
50:04
new york collection as well and you're always begging for more with a bruegel piece
50:11
it's just and it just goes off into the horizon so there's nothing left this is obviously uh uh
50:17
uh an image from his memory of his trip to the alps probably the north face of the ir and this magpie here in the
50:23
foreground which again is back then a bird of of of ill omen
50:29
uh birds got a bum rap for some reason in in in painting for some i still don't understand why magpies are
50:36
quite beautiful but royal throws that this bird in here which is in the foreground up against the farthest
50:42
object in the background so as you can see you just
50:48
you're invited to fall into this piece and experience all of these dramas
50:53
as they unwind again a very very strong characteristic of bruegel this cosmic
50:59
view you're looking down at this fantasy scape this does not exist anywhere in the world nowhere in the netherlands
51:05
you're going to see a craggy landscape escape like this you're not likely to find a hill that's high either i don't
51:10
think it's a single place to to ride a sled in in belgium
51:17
hunters in the snow my favorite painting so this is part of um
51:25
five possibly six uh season paintings that he did and what was very typical was the high
51:31
horizon line activated creature uh creatures and figures often turned away
51:38
going about their lives and there are often paintings within paintings when you're looking at burgle's work
51:45
i should point out after 15 after he does this season cycle um and he's rather successful at this
51:52
point he's a rather wealthy artist his style changes and his re his uh
51:57
recreation changes he starts crashing weddings and banquets uh with the merchant nicholas frankford it's a very
52:04
unusual practice but they would dress like peasants and pretend they were members of the
52:11
opposite family and they would get into these weddings and they would uh eat and dance and and drink and
52:18
and celebrate and have a lot of fun this is an image from uh the 2005 comedy hit
52:23
the wedding crashers again we don't know what bruegel looked like we don't know what his friend looked like but i guess vince vaughn you know and wilson are
52:30
good as any guesses that we can make funny movie by the way we get a chance
52:35
to see it here is an example of painting he did during this period
52:41
he did a number of peasant festivity paintings but i wanted to show you this one because it shows you a
52:46
drastic change in his style and his approach he had a strong as i mentioned he had a
52:52
very sincere sympathy and and and interest in
52:59
common life and it might be because he started working more with no noblemen and
53:05
and rich patrons that he he connects with him in this manner
53:11
you'll notice this is the first interior painting we do with royal this is called the peasant wedding 1567 it's about the same size as the
53:19
paintings that were done uh for the season cycle but this is a different point of view
53:25
we are at the ground level we are looking through the eyes of a guest we
53:30
are at this wedding for all intents and purposes we are crashing this wedding
53:36
and if we look at this drama playing through again you'll notice the number of backs turned
53:42
to the viewer it would be very interesting to see what peter bruegel would have done if he did the last supper how many people would be
53:49
facing you and how many would be facing the backs leonardo would uh take offense to this approach i guess
53:55
but there are a couple of very interesting things going on here what we're looking at here
54:02
is a wedding banquet here's the blushing bride and we know that she's the focal point because they have this green drape behind her this
54:08
paper crown hanging over her and she is framed within this this framework here
54:14
to the right is her mother and to the to the right to the far right is her
54:20
father begs the question who is the groom
54:25
well it was it was the custom at the time that the groom independent wedding also
54:31
helped entertain the hosts and served the wedding guests
54:36
it is safe to assume that the groom is the main character here who has her back turned to us
54:44
this is a very interesting dynamic here we have the blushing bride i mean she couldn't be blushing more
54:50
the way her face her cheeks are flush there are some scholarly
54:57
arguments that are quite compelling that this is the groom because he's in this frame
55:03
making eye contact with well not the groom but the father who seems none too
55:09
pleased he's flipping the bill for this but he's kind of he doesn't look happy about this banquet he's kind of giving
55:15
this guy a look and you notice everybody's sort of participating and enjoying this this
55:22
party otherwise except for the father of the bride and who we can assume is the
55:27
group meanwhile everyone else eating and everybody else is conversing now this may be a modern uh take on this
55:35
but her wedding dress is a dark green covered by a light green
55:42
it was traditional in peasant weddings um the symbol of uh fertility and
55:48
virginity you would use either a white or a blue dress she's wearing green with a red vamp a
55:54
red headpiece there so there is suspicion that this is a shotgun wedding she's already pregnant
56:01
and this is what's playing out here he doesn't look like a happy groom
56:07
and the just the look between the father-in-law to be or the father-in-law and the son it just
56:13
speaks volumes also in this you're noticing this is one of the first time you
56:18
actually see a banquet scene where people are actually eating in in medieval in in early renaissance
56:24
banquet scenes nobody eats everybody's kind of is looking around the food
56:29
uh bank uh wedding at cana the last supper here roygold throws caution at
56:34
the wind i i i was lucky enough to attend my nephew's wedding two weeks ago and uh
56:40
i'm seeing this drama uh play itself out here's uh my uh
56:46
my cousin angelo here um uncle uncle nunzio here they're they're they're not
56:52
just eating but they're eating with reckless abandon they're not even looking up at uh who they're talking to
56:58
so everybody it's it's a loud painting everybody's again activated here's the child in the foreground
57:04
enjoying a piece of buttered bread and licking the bottom of this custard in a bowl
57:11
this character here in the middle ground he's part of the entertainment
57:16
it's a funny scene actually let's see if i can show you where he is here
57:22
he's obviously been playing for a while um he's probably being paid in food he's looking at the food
57:30
along this diagonal he's actually this guy's still playing he actually stopped and he's kind of like a dog when you
57:36
break out a piece of ham or a biscuit he's just he looks completely over occupied by what's going on here
57:43
and what's being served so he's clearly starving very interesting you'll also notice and
57:50
this is something that bruegel uh made deliberately there are no more than 20 guests at this party and the guests are
57:56
being anything above that are being blocked at the gate this was another rule that was imposed by king philip ii
58:01
that there would be no more than 20 guests at any public a private gathering it would be considered an act of
58:08
rebellion so there are in fact 20 guests at the party
58:17
on the far right you see two characters that look like they don't belong this is a nobleman
58:23
he's obviously well-dressed maybe the landlord of this uh wedding and he's talking to a
58:28
priest who maybe have been this monk who may have uh
58:35
conducted the wedding ceremony there's also a discussion that this was a self-portrait that this is bruegel in
58:42
disguise and this is his friend franker and they're off to the right
58:47
there are no known portraits of bruegel no self-portraits we don't know what he looked like
58:52
but we do have some idea he may have thrown himself in there so here we are participating in this
58:58
wedding where viewers were crashing it we're looking at all the different personalities it's the wonderful
59:04
painting and this painting is also in vienna now
59:11
a lot of people would argue that peasant life life in general is just so difficult and complex and short and
59:18
brutal and wouldn't it be great if everything was provided for us and
59:23
nobody needed to work and and the rivers flowed with wine and and
59:29
apples fell from the trees into our mouths there was a sense of you this utopia that this was something to aspire
59:36
to the uh the flemish had a myth uh it was
59:41
a medieval called the land of cocaine not cocaine is the narcotic but
59:47
this is i just wanted to throw this editorial painting in that he did shortly after this
59:52
and this was the land of milk and honey the land where nobody has to do anything i find this one of the most interesting
59:59
paintings by broil because first of all it's centralized
1:00:04
there's so much diagonal but here it's almost like a merry-go-round around the tree cocaine the word here in flemish means loosely
1:00:12
crazy tasty land it's sort of like the like the candy land the land of milk and honey this is what we aspire to this
1:00:18
wouldn't life be great if we just had a land like this where we didn't have to do anything the food would just fall
1:00:24
into our mouths and that's what's happening here i think bruegel's answering that with this
1:00:30
he's and you could ask yourself does bruegel see this is a world that we should
1:00:35
aspire to and look at this fantasy here at the center is this wobbly table
1:00:41
we have three individuals all with different responsibilities and this is the first time in a bruegel
1:00:47
piece where the major characters are all passive they're static they're they're
1:00:53
atropine almost like veal they're asleep can't tell whether sleep or they're in a vegetative state but nobody's getting
1:00:59
anything done here you have a knight who's disarmed he has his gauntlet off he's actually sleeping on top of his
1:01:06
lance here we have a farmer who's out cold
1:01:11
because he's full they've eaten to the point where where they're ready to pass out
1:01:18
there's another night he's kind of looking up and making an effort he's if you can see above here
1:01:25
in this fat fantasy land the world is this roof is paved with pancakes people
1:01:30
thought that he was waiting for this pancake to fall into his mouth and he's the most active character in
1:01:35
this this poor tab turned out in an x-ray there's a cooked pheasant that's flying right into his
1:01:42
mouth but burgle painted over it but this is again we're looking at
1:01:47
this gate made of pre pre-made sausages there's cheese at your disposal
1:01:53
loaves of well pop overs that are falling out of the sky and into their mouths but
1:02:00
the humans here we have another one the humans are all rather inactive
1:02:05
they're passive this seat here we have a goose that's uh that's already plucked
1:02:10
and roasted and and is serving his head up uh for you to eat this pig here is more than happy to serve you he's
1:02:16
running around with a knife and he just he's he's he's already been roasted and you just break off a piece
1:02:23
i always thought this egg was funny so this half chicken and he got this knife in here he's looking for somebody to eat
1:02:29
him he's running around looking you could spread him on a piece of bread or throw them on a pizza on a bowl of
1:02:34
porridge he's kind of recording this academic you know that he's a nobleman he's wearing a
1:02:42
an expensive coat it's fur lined he's resting on
1:02:47
his maybe in bible we don't know this document nothing is getting done here's one guy
1:02:54
in the far right he just ate himself through a cloud of buckwheat
1:02:59
porridge and he's about to spill himself over onto the ground which begs the question whether will he
1:03:05
have any energy left at all to do anything so i think it's safe to say that
1:03:12
this is a disturbing utopia depregal that the only things that are activated
1:03:18
at all are the food while everyone else isn't getting anything done they're just
1:03:24
kind of you know minds in neutral staring off into the sky this guy has his mouth open while
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there's wine pouring into his face but this is very different from any other
1:03:35
painting he's ever done they almost seem like they're in a vegetative trance state
1:03:41
and uh i i just found this a very interesting piece that i wanted to share because there's nothing like it in the
1:03:47
broil catalog the land of cocaine
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1568 there are seismic changes in bruegel's life
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bruegel falls ill even though he has a he's very successful
1:04:06
um he has lots of money he's renowned his work is sort out he had a commission
1:04:12
by the belgian uh government uh to do a painting to celebrate the opening of the canal
1:04:18
but he's too sick to do it we're not sure what the nature of his illness was they probably didn't know
1:04:24
themselves but he struggled his health begins to fail
1:04:29
he stops painting after 1568 and this is the last painting he did
1:04:37
this is in germany magpie on the gallows it's a very small painting
1:04:44
i've never seen it in in person and this may be autobiographical this
1:04:50
may be uh his swan song but what we're looking at here
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is again bruegel at his best we're looking at all of this
1:05:02
detail in this fantasy scape
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and what's amazing about bruegel is that you don't get lost in the detail you just you fall into this world that it
1:05:14
creates and there's just again every drop of paint has a story to tell
1:05:19
so the gallows as you know is where they would hang public offenders so it's a symbol of
1:05:25
death you have this magpie on top of it which adds to the starkness of the image
1:05:32
you have a fading cross so this mag well this gallows here has been there for many many years we can see that
1:05:40
but off to the left somebody's curious something rather curious is happening you have these guys
1:05:46
again backs turn to us they all seem to be celebrating
1:05:53
they're dancing they're playing music they're living their life they're they're they're
1:05:58
you're not even sure what they're celebrating and it doesn't really matter and and to have this dance
1:06:05
right next to the foot of the gallows paul what's bruegel saying really
1:06:11
about the harshness of life what do we do about it
1:06:20
the dialogue that we have with bruegel is is very complex here as you go down the hill
1:06:25
takes it to this flemish village and again these these figures here they're probably at best a quarter of an inch
1:06:32
high but you could in bruegel's typical fashion it is in his genius there are paintings within
1:06:38
his painting there's a better detail that village off
1:06:43
to the left everybody's living their life while these guys are celebrating by the gallows
1:06:50
now from here i'm going to switch off to the right we're going to go down this hill
1:06:56
into this valley where there is a farmer again this is fascinating
1:07:02
i wonder this the the feel of this this piece if you were to remove this character
1:07:09
but there there's a man there it was back turned what is he up to there's so many questions so many more
1:07:15
questions and answers we go up the hill we follow the river through the valley
1:07:20
we start seeing this beautiful pastoral view as we start cutting across from this
1:07:25
view this reminds me of a view from new pulse
1:07:30
gertrude's nose the escarpment over there that looks over the valley of new pulse or looking
1:07:36
down very very similar royal captures his atmospheric perspective beautifully
1:07:41
the temperature changes as you go into the distance you might also notice that the colors are changing
1:07:49
this is mid-season this is uh probably the height of summer or
1:07:55
the end of summer the leaves are starting to change they're growing orange it's autumn
1:08:00
here we know this beautiful fantasy
1:08:07
palace as we keep going on to the river into the valley we see even more
1:08:15
and i don't know about you but when i look at a burglar painting i just feel like
1:08:21
when it's over i just wish there was more and he takes us all the way to the horizon line
1:08:27
and we just run out of the bragelian cosmos
1:08:35
and that's a lot of painting within an 18 by 20 square and this is the last painting he did
1:08:41
uh that we know of and i think it was a swan song he may
1:08:46
have done this deliberately this is what his view of life was in a nutshell that
1:08:52
death is coming there's nothing we can do about it except maybe dance it's a beautiful stunning landscape just
1:08:58
maxes out his his talents and his ability to paint not
1:09:03
just the trees but the types of trees oh and of course he can't be broiled without adding
1:09:09
his toilet humor i forgot to mention this guy on the left here in the shadows
1:09:16
as you might notice i'll zoom up on him so along this all this cosmic beauty
1:09:23
[Music] we have this guy front and center with his pants off
1:09:29
we're leaving himself bent over and we've seen this before in hunters in the snow with a dog
1:09:37
but it's just interesting that he finds it interesting that he finds it in um
1:09:43
necessary to throw that character in so even there bruegel is throwing in humor
1:09:49
with drama and death and despair and and it's it's such a he's such a human
1:09:55
artist he he hits all the points of the human condition and then in 1569
1:10:00
he dies prior to this he makes the request to his wife that any painting that would
1:10:08
be considered offensive to the spanish realm be destroyed so we don't know how many paintings he
1:10:13
actually did and we don't know what he meant by destroyed because he there are some paintings that were painted over that
1:10:20
might have been uh considered offensive like the slaughter of the innocents um
1:10:25
i'm not sure if he king philip would have been happy with his procession to calvary
1:10:34
oh when another thing happens younger link his number one patron
1:10:40
his business falls apart he's ruined he has to sell all of his works
1:10:45
he's penniless he has to pay off all of his creditors and guess who buys them all up the habsburgs
1:10:52
the german dynasty uh they ran they had a hand in spanish rule but they ruled
1:10:57
mostly bavaria and vienna they collected and bought 16 they
1:11:02
actually ended up buying 16 of yongaling's paintings and then an additional four and
1:11:08
brought them back to vienna in their private villa in the late 1800s they were brought here this building was
1:11:13
created this is the constitution's museum in vienna this is a place that i have to make a
1:11:20
pilgrimage to being the brutal acolyte that i am
1:11:25
this is where bruegel's paintings are here to stay uh they're wood panel paintings they're too fragile to move
1:11:32
and send on loan overseas or to any place else uh there isn't a single insurance company that would agree
1:11:38
to uh transport these paintings there's the name of the museum if you ever go to vienna by all means visit
1:11:45
this museum if not for any other reason for this room this is the bruegel room
1:11:51
these pieces were the ones that were in yolandink's uh younger links
1:11:57
villa or they were supposed to be before they were sold out but these are all borgel paintings
1:12:03
biblical scenes which uh i can discuss it another day that's a that's a that's a
1:12:10
talk in and of itself there's
1:12:16
some more peasant scenes but this room is is exclusive there are
1:12:21
20 pieces in all florida venus it's on the left gloomy day that's autumn and of course
1:12:28
hunters in the snow so if you need to see these the best you
1:12:33
can do if you can't get there is try to find a high resolution image of it but there's nothing like getting in front of a broil if you can't do that
1:12:41
ah try to get to the metropolitan museum of art we're blessed enough to have one of
1:12:46

1:12:53
in new york and we can ever talk about this as well and i i hope that
1:12:58
i've managed to pique your interest in exploring more of
1:13:03
his works uh we've only discussed six paintings today
1:13:10
of his 40. i recommend viewing this if you want to uh research burgle more this is a
1:13:16
a movie that was done in 2011. absolutely beautiful by les majewski the mill and the cross
1:13:23
it's a it's a movie about bruegel's painting the procession to calvary
1:13:31
rutger howard plays peter bruegel michael york plays yongelink his commission
1:13:37
and charlotte rampling plays uh sort of a pseudo uh mary
1:13:42
mother of jesus this is a scene from the movie again none of this exists in real life
1:13:49
it's a it's a pure fantasy but you can start seeing the boy galilean imagery the man who made this
1:13:55
was uh a total fan of broil he did it's a work from the heart
1:14:00
it it's slow paced but it was what i would call an excruciatingly beautiful
1:14:06
movie to check out so if you like bruegel check out the mill and the cross i don't know if netflix or any of those
1:14:12
guys have it but by all means try to find a copy of it
1:14:17
i also recommend this book for broadlights this is headlong came out in 1999 by michael fraim it's a
1:14:24
comedy parody but there's a lot of beautiful scholarship and description of bruegel's work
1:14:30
it's a fictional story about a couple that summer is in england and they're dealing with a rather
1:14:37
brash villa or summer home owner who doesn't
1:14:42
realize that in his house is one of the missing
1:14:48
royal paintings from the from the season series and all of the complications and hilarity of
1:14:54
ensues on this particular painting this is a fictional work because we don't
1:15:00
know how many paintings were actually done but just imagine how you would feel some ring in england and finding out
1:15:06
that the painting over a fireplace or in a cellar was the lost bruegel and what do you do after that and
1:15:13
that's the forces and stuff and the powers that be and what what they
1:15:18
want to do uh in obtaining the painting so i would hope
1:15:24
and that concludes this talk i i hope that this uh helped bolster your appreciation of bruegel's work
1:15:32
and his approach and how uh he's touched uh many artists uh
1:15:39
500 years after he's passed on but i'd like to thank you all for joining me and i'm glad we got to go
1:15:44
through all of this um right we we do have some questions um
1:15:49
and actually by the way i've read headlong and i do heartily recommend it it's a very good book
1:15:55
so absolutely excellent um okay so i have richard brenner and he says uh the
1:16:01
mountain looks like a model for what sedan would make famous three centuries on i'm not quite sure which painting
1:16:08
he's referring to though um it could be
1:16:14
perhaps richard could actually let us know which which painting he was referring to because he also says in hunters in the snow
1:16:20
isn't the magpie proportionally too large i'm not sure whether he was trying to
1:16:26
nail the proportionally too large i wouldn't say that i would say that it was probably
1:16:31
it's it's the closest thing in the foreground because bear in mind when you're looking at let's bring up
1:16:37
hunters in the snow since we're here you're looking at hunters in the snow
1:16:43
this is not a natural view this is a view as if you it was a cosmic view
1:16:50
we're looking so in order for a magpie to be this large
1:16:55
in real life it would mean that it would have to be in the foreground the the foremost foreground
1:17:01
and brutal sometimes plays fast and loose with the proportion uh whether it's too long or large i'm
1:17:08
not even sure whether he he's i mean one could argue that these characters are too dis to squat and
1:17:13
cartoonish but the narrative here is that this bird is
1:17:19
in our space mind you this is this is a cosmic view we're not even on the hill we're looking
1:17:26
down from this hill as if we're partying a cloud and looking looking at this to take place
1:17:32
but is it too large i don't know you would have to ask the artist um but i
1:17:37
i think that the the point was and that it's so dark and there's so much detail shows that it's in the foreground it's
1:17:43
probably the closest thing to us it's as if it were buzzing us and it's pressed up against and he and virgo does this a
1:17:49
lot he'll press it up against the farthest object in a painting i hope that helps
1:17:55
okay um and richard brenner also says the mountain he was referring to was in the painting that opened part two
1:18:04
and the question was the mountain looks like a model for what cezanne would make famous three centuries later on
1:18:12
well it could very well be i don't know if cezanne would have had access to uh that painting i don't know suzanne
1:18:19
often worked from from life so
1:18:25
i don't know whether he was influenced by that he might have seen something similar
1:18:30
i do think that a lot of the the landscapes that you see in bruegel are
1:18:35
from his memory are from his imagination i mean none of these mountains and hunters in the snow
1:18:41
truly exist i mean this place doesn't exist it's one of them again one of the
1:18:46
gifts of bruegel is he he takes you to a place that not only have you never been but a place that has never been
1:18:52
so the he's a world maker it's almost like i have a strong appreciation for those
1:18:58
types of artists tolkien's middle earth for instance you know they
1:19:03
it's it these things exist in their imagination even though we have this earthly
1:19:11
understanding and appreciation for them i mean i can't find this place on a map
1:19:17
on earth i mean especially in belgium there's just no place like it but there's no place like
1:19:22
this in in in uh in the swiss alps
1:19:28
it's a landmark for the most part you're not going to find an ocean escape and it it's it's a pure fantasy but at the same time
1:19:35
it's it's believable it's relatable i love it
1:19:40
any other question um well we have some comments um so uh kellen alder is saying um
1:19:48
that she thought it's a wonderful talk as does sandra bond and howard paul uh
1:19:53
so illuminating thank you christine balo says great talk i'll have to go back to vienna and re-examine his paintings
1:20:01
yes um and does anyone else have any other questions please put them in the chat room or the q a if you do
1:20:08
okay i think uh perhaps that's all well thank you for joining us this
1:20:14
evening i hope you and i hope that you have the opportunity to explore more of
1:20:19
his work there are more seasons uh in in the cycle that you can
1:20:25
explore uh one of these days i like to do a field trip to the metropolitan where we could look at the uh the one
1:20:31

1:20:37
it's all out there for you and uh yeah i hope that uh you um you've enjoyed the talk as much as i
1:20:44
enjoyed giving it and thanks again for having me and thanks for spending your evening with me i i'm
1:20:50
sure everyone enjoyed that talk it's very interesting we'd like to thank randall for giving such an interesting talk on bruegel the elder and we hope
1:20:56
you found it both engaging and informative we should also again like to thank first republic private wealth management for
1:21:03
this generous sponsorship of tonight's program um the next lecture will be given by helen harrison who's returning um she's
1:21:11
giving a talk on hampton's bohemia um two centuries of artists
1:21:18
um uh and writers on the beach so that will be the next lecture and that will be on october 14th
1:21:25
so we will be sending an email out about that um so please look out for our email about
1:21:31
that lecture and also other upcoming events and classes um we will be doing an atelier uh
1:21:37
invitational after bill graf solo show so we're still accepting um entrance for
1:21:43
that um so thank you very much and have a good evening
1:21:49
good night good night