Читать книгу Pieter Bruegel - Victoria Charles - Страница 3

There is hardly a master whose works and life are more interesting than those of Pieter Bruegel. The first in a long line of painters, he was the founder of one of many Flemish families in which artistic talent seems to have been hereditary, for instance, the Van Eycks, the Matsys, the Van Orleys, the Pourbus, the Van Cleves, the Coxies, the Keys, the De Vos, and, later, the Teniers.

The Fall of Icarus

c. 1555-1560

Oil on canvas, 73.5 × 112 cm

Königliche Museen der Schönen Künste, Brussels

Having his roots in a line of old Flemish stock, this singular and original artist and thinker drew all of his energy from his native soil and produced a vigorous family tree that sprouted in many directions.

Big Fish Eat Little Fish

1556

Pen and ink drawing in grey and black ink, 21.6 × 30.7 cm

Graphische Sammlung, Albertina, Vienna

One example was his equally renowned son Jan, who is well known by his epithet ‘Velvet Brueghel’, a painter whose exceptional talent contrasted strikingly with that of his father. Through the work of these two markedly different masters, we have the opportunity to follow the different phases of Flemish art during a period when its constitution and aims were undergoing profound change.

The Ass in the School

1556

Pen and Indian ink, 23.2 × 30.2 cm

Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin