#dutch renaissance

[artsandculture]

The Hunters in the Snow (1565) 🎨 Pieter Bruegel the Elder 🏛️ Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien 📍 Vienna, Austria

In the late 16th century, the Antwerp banker Niclaes Jongelinck owned one of the most important painting collections in the Netherlands. He commissioned Bruegel to create a series of six seasonal paintings, the last of which is shown here. The series also included: Gloomy Day (Early Spring; KHM, GG 1837), Spring (now lost); Hay-Harvest (Early Summer; Nelahozeves Castle, Czech Republic, Lobkowitz Collection); The Harvesters (Late Summer; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art); Return of the Herd (Autumn; KHM, GG 1018). For the composition of this series, Bruegel, who today is regarded as the most progressive landscape painter of the 16th century, followed an older tradition that divided the year, beginning on 1 March, into six unequally long seasons. What all the compositions have in common is the so-called balcony motif, i.e., the depiction of a hill in the foreground from which an overall view of the landscape unfolds. On top of the hill a group of hunters accompanied by a pack of dogs is seen, making their way back to the village below. Their catch is poor: a single fox dangling from the spear the hunter on the left carries on his shoulder. To the hunter’s left, Bruegel added a motif that had been used forquire some time in book illumination for depicting the month of December: the preparations for singeing a pig over an open fire outside a building. The damaged sign hanging above them reveals the name of the inn: “dit is inden Hert”, meaning “To the Deer” – a well-aimed passing shot. Entertaining details, such as the people ice-skating on the frozen lakes, have contributed to the painting’s enormous popularity. However, it does not owe its significance in art history to its details but rather to the overall impression conveyed by the coloration and composition. With virtuosity and consistency Bruegel evokes the impression of cold: white, blue-green and brown are the dominant colours. The precise silhouette of the trees, the frozen mill-wheel at the lower right and the icy surface of the snow revealed by the hunters’ footprints blend together to convey the fundamental characteristics of winter. The scene is an invented, universally formulated landscape: the combination of a chain of Alpine mountains with Flemish architecture renders pointless any search for reality.

[zoeandsubaloveart]

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Dutch, 1525/1530-1569)

Hunters in the Snow, 1565

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Fire breaks out at Copenhagen's stock exchange | REUTERS

16 April 2024

A fire ripped through Copenhagen's Old Stock Exchange, one of the Danish capital's best-known buildings, engulfing its spire, which collapsed in a scene reminiscent of the 2019 blaze at Paris' Notre-Dame.

[oncanvas]

The Harrowing of Hell, follower of Hieronymus Bosch, circa 16th century

Oil on oak panel 43.6 x 58.3 cm (17 ⅛ x 23 in.)

[elf-trash]

Wine is a Mocker - Jan Steen, 17th century

This has been one of my favorite paintings since I first saw it! It's at the Norton Simon in Pasadena.

17th century Dutch paintings are so lit lol

Word for today: tronie

A style of painting invented/popularized in Holland in the 17th Century, showing naturalistic and non-idealized facial expressions (and less-attractive or drunk people) as opposed to the formalism of the Renaissance. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tronies

[senecalui]

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Fall of the Rebel Angels. 1562. Oil on panel, 46 in × 64 in. Photo courtesy Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels.

The following excerpts are attributed to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.

The Fall of the Rebel Angels details the first confrontation between Good and Evil, even before the Fall of Man, when the most powerful angel, Lucifer (or "light-bearer") turns upon the divine authority. Following this, he is chased from heaven by Archangel Michael upon God's orders, bringing about the fall of the other rebel angels. When they fall, the rebel angels are transformed into demons and are condemned to the pits of darkness.

The painting's surface is horizontally divided into two roughly even halves: the heavens take up the upper part of the work, whilst hell is represented below. The light hues of the heavens contrast with the rich, sombre tones of hell, where ochres and warm shades of brown blend together. The composition as a whole, due both to the subject and the painter's artistic choices, reinforces the idea of the fight between Good and Evil – a recurring theme in the works of Bruegel the Elder.

Detail of a good angel fighting the rebels. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Detail of Archangel Michael. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Donning gold-clad armor, the archangel holds a shield with a red Latin cross on a white background—a symbol of the Resurrection. Brandishing his sword above his head, Michael slays the Apocalyptic dragon before hurling him and the fallen angels to the depths of hell.

Detail of the fallen angels. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Detail of a good angel fighting the rebels. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Among the naturalia, Bruegel also uses identifiable parts of crustaceans, molluscs and fish, which he sometimes combines together and at other times reproduces as they are, as in the case of the blowfish (Tetraodontiformes from the tetraodontidae family) depicted in the upper right-hand corner.

Detail of angelic musicians. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Far away, some angels are already proclaiming victory with their horns, suggesting a positive result from the battle.

Detail of half-human and half-animal monsters. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Bruegel's fallen angels are made up different natural elements or naturalia (objects made by nature).

Their naturalistic appearance implies a detailed study of the visible world as if he had observed them in cabinets of curiosities. Take for example, the central figure, just below Michael's right foot whose ornate black and yellow patterned wings are indisputably those of a Machaon butterfly (Papilio machaon).

Detail of monstrous demons. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

[portablefrailty]

Two recent Deep Dream creations rendered in the color schemes and shading of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting.

The first I call Purgation. It depicts the nebulous and distorted shades of once influential and powerful men holding some kind of midnight council. In life they decided the fates of other men at such meetings. In death, they are reduced to fruitless pantomime.

The second picture is titled Séance. In this image a writer works alone by candle light. But he's not alone. He feels the weight of watchful eyes, the gaze of unseen ancestors who sit in judgment on his life and work. Whether real or mere projections of his own self-doubt, they drive him onward and keep him feverishly bent on his task.

[illustratus]

The Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

[crypt-of-vanities]

Portrait of Jean de Carondelet (1469-1544), Jan Gossaert, 1517

[kabukiaku]

The Plague Doctor's Visit.

[eirene]

Portrait of a Woman, possibly Anne Codde, 1529

Maarten Van Heemskerck

[geritsel]

Follower of Hieronymus Bosch - Christ's Descent into Hell, late 16th century.

[zoeandsubaloveart]

Peter Bruegel the Elder (Dutch, 1525 to 1530 - 1569)

[classic-art-favourites]

Ascent of the Blessed by Hieronymus Bosch, 1505-1515.

[hrleyquinn]

details from Garden of Earthly Delights (1503-1515) by Hieronymus Bosch

[theaskew]

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Dutch-Flemish c. 1525–1530-1569), Hunters in the Snow (Winter), 1565. Oak wood, Overall: 116,5 cm × 162 cm × 2,4 cm Framed: 134 cm × 180 cm × 11 cm. (Source: Kunst Historisches Museum Wein, Vienna)