Landscapes. Émile Michel
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the decadence of Italy, its prestige in the outside world was continually increasing. In the Netherlands more particularly, the emigration movement could not fail to find favour with artists, for their own country was disturbed at that time, and they not only hoped for an easier life there, but had the prospect of a world-famed artistic education. On leaving their Flemish plains, whose monotony is only broken by a few insignificant undulations, the sight of the magnificently picturesque countries through which they passed naturally made a great impression upon them. Amazed and charmed as they all were, there were nevertheless some among them who were so deeply attached to their own country that, after a certain time, refusing to yield to the fascination which kept many of their fellow artists in Italy, they hurried back to their native land. Among these was Bruegel, one of the most curious and characteristic figures of his time.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder was born around 1530; he belonged to a peasant family, which took its name from a Brabant village near Breda. He preserved, both in his talent and in his choice of subjects, the rustic stamp to the end of his career. He must, no doubt, have given proof at an early age of his artistic inclinations, since his parents, without making any difficulty, allowed him to pursue the calling he had chosen. He was apprenticed at Antwerp to an artist who was celebrated at that time, Pieter Coecke, a man who had travelled in the East and who had studied sculpture and architecture as well as painting. Bruegel also took lessons from Jerome Cock, better known as an engraver, who had an important business selling prints.
Like his two masters, almost as soon as he was free, young Bruegel, who had been made a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1551, was drawn into the current which had carried his fellow artists away to Italy. He went through France, and, as the inscription of one of his engravings proves, he was in Rome in 1553.
Bruegel, however, did not stay long in Italy. Both his education and his tastes induced him to return to his own country. He must have been back in Flanders in 1553. In this picture we have a crowd of people of every age and rank, frolicking on the frozen trenches of the city of Antwerp. The artist was at home again among his fellow countrymen. He was a friend of peasants and liked to live among them. He was interested in their work, was present at their holiday-makings, and painted them just as he saw them: unembellished, heavy and awkward, knowing nothing of the graces of life, with sunburnt complexions and rough, unshapely hands. Bruegel scrupulously placed his rustic figures in their own surroundings. Behind them is the country where they live, with their simple cottages and familiar horizons. We find all this in the Peasants Quarrelling, and in the subjects taken from the Bible, which he transposed into a Flemish style. There is The Massacre of the Innocents, to which the sombre sky of a snowy day gives an additional note of sadness, and the Parable of the Blind. Both of these pictures are masterpieces. The peaceful nook, which is the scene of the latter episode, is rendered by the artist with as much truth as poetry. The fresh green of the meadows, the light and depth of the silvery sky, the humble air of the village and of its little church, the low hill which shuts out the horizon, the streamlet towards which the blind people are winding their way with uncertain steps, are all well thought out and expressed. He has no regard for acknowledged conventions and his work is marked by the originality of the conception, the confidence of drawing, and the strength and delicacy of colouring.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Massacre of the Innocents, 1565/1567.
Oil on oak, 116 × 160 cm.
Gemäldegalerie, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Landscape with the Flight into Egypt, 1563.
Oil on panel, 37.1 × 55.6 cm.
The Courtauld Gallery, London.
Bruegel was greatly respected for his character and appreciated for his talent. Owing to his industry and to the fact that his productions included all kinds of pictures, his wealth and fame increased during his own lifetime. He had two sons who also became painters and a daughter who married David Teniers. The year of the birth of his second son was the culminating point of his career. It was in this year, 1568, that he signed his picture entitled The Blind, now in the Naples Museum. The Magpie on the Gallows, which he considered one of his best works, is currently located in Darmstadt.
He did not long enjoy the happiness he had earned in so legitimate a way through his work as he died the following year, aged approximately forty-four. With him disappeared one of the most original figures of Flemish art. Just at the time when art seemed likely to be misled by the Italianising influence, Bruegel brought its best traditions into honour once more. Undoubtedly he was violent and somewhat harsh in his work, but his power stands out in strong contrast when compared with the subtleties and insipidities of most of his contemporaries. It would be futile to look to any of these for such fertility and such wealth of imagination. In his paintings he liked contrasts, even in his subjects. Deep browns and blacks are used with pure whites, and he never fears to accentuate the brilliancy of his reds, yellows and greens. But while he leaves all their fullness to these colours, he composes harmonies of strange boldness with them. Bruegel was not ultra-refined; he belonged to his own little village and did not lose his robustness in the city. With his cheerful gaiety and fun, and his constant raciness, he gives us an art, which, though perhaps at the price of some coarseness, sustained intact its power and freshness. We shall not study here the work of his elder son, Pieter II who, as his nickname of “Hell” Bruegel indicates, preferred painting fantastic and diabolical pictures. The second son, Jan, was called “Velvet” Brueghel on account of the elegance of his dress and manners. But this epithet is also justified by the soft and minute finish of his style. He was scarcely a year old when, on the death of his father, he was adopted by his grandmother. She was an artist herself, and she taught the child to paint in watercolours. After taking lessons from Pieter Goekindt, a painter not well known, he made a pilgrimage to Italy, in accordance with the fashion of his time. He stayed there from 1593 to 1596, sketching the monuments and ruins of Rome.
Velvet Brueghel (Jan Brueghel the Elder), River Landscape with Resting Hikers, 1594.
Oil on copper, 25.5 × 34.5 cm.
Private collection.
Owing to the consideration in which his father was held and to his own personal charm, Jan soon made a place for himself in Antwerp, and was immediately admitted to the Guild of St. Luke. Besides the complex compositions, which so often tempted Bruegel, he also painted landscapes, but of very unequal value. The best of them, those in which the various themes are most accurately presented, are his various Roads, Approaches to a Town, and Canals. These are all panoramic views, animated by numberless figures to which he gives lifelike attitudes and gestures. In spite of the extreme abundance of detail, he preserves a great simplicity; but on the other hand there is often a great medley and crudeness of tone. Generally, he made use of the conventional three tones so dear to Patenier. Bruegel, perhaps, carried this to a greater excess than his predecessors. No doubt the colour of some of his landscapes has changed, for we find in the foreground of several of them those sharp blues which attract and offend the eye. Nevertheless, he gave more than one useful lesson to the landscapists who came after him, teaching them how to render the foliage of the various kinds of trees and how to characterise them more satisfactorily. His productions were very much in demand during his lifetime, and owing to his work he was able to sucessfully bring up the nine children of his two marriages. He died in 1625, and Rubens undertook the role of guardian to his children. He also painted the portrait of his friend, to be enshrined in the monument erected to his memory by his family in the church of St. George.
His two sons were also artists. Jan treated, with less skill, the same subjects as his father, and Ambros was known as a flower painter. “Velvet” Brueghel may be considered the last of that dynasty of artists with whom the development of the Flemish school can be studied in a connected way. Between the marvellous commencement and the rapid decline of this school, there is another glorious name that deserves a place of honour. Rubens cannot exactly be classed as a landscapist and yet, in the scenery he painted when directly inspired by nature, he manifested all the originality of his universal