Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints

Orenstein, Nadine M., ed., with contributions by Nadine M. Orenstein, Manfred Sellink, Jürgen Müller, Michiel C. Plomp, Martin Royalton-Kisch, and Larry Silver (2001)

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Description

One of the greatest Netherlandish artists, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525/30–1569) is best known today for his paintings of peasant life. Yet is was above all through his exceptional graphic work that he achieved widespread fame during the sixteenth century. His drawings and prints made after his designs, while based on traditional sources, are innovative and independent, and they are wide ranging in their subject matter.

Among Bruegel's foremost achievements in the graphic realm is the naturalistic rendering of landscapes. In many instances inspired by the Alpine mountains and valleys the artists encountered during a journey in Italy he made as a young man, these views synthesize the imagery of Bruegel's Italian and Netherlandish predecessors at the same time they represent a new and highly influential departure: an independent landscape genre entirely focused on nature. Indeed, a sixteenth-century authors famously wrote of Bruegel, "he teaches us to represent ... the angular, rocky Alps, the dizzying views down into a deep valley, steep cliffs, pine trees that kiss the clouds, far distances, and rushing streams." The master also created a body of peerless figurative designs featuring demons, virtuous souls, fools, and faceless peasants tilling the land. In allegories, portrayals of proverbs, and biblical narratives he dissected the imperfections of human nature, giving free rein to his imagination and wicked sense of humor. Often Bruegel produced what one early observer called "fantasies and bizarre things, dreams, and imaginations" that were closely based on the work of Hieronymus Bosch and inspired his contemporaries to call him the second Bosch.

Bruegel's graphic work has recently been the subject of scholarship that has reevaluated the parameters of his oeuvre, assigning to other artists drawings formerly believed to be by his hand and adding some new sheets to the canon. The new Bruegel who has emerged from these studies is the subject of this volume, which accompanies an exhibition held at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York—surprisingly the first major show devoted solely to the master's drawings and prints. In essays of interest to the general audience and scholars alike, an international group of experts discusses the artist's life; his contributions as a draftsman and as a designer of prints; his social and intellectual context; and the posthumous survival of his art. Entries on the more than 140 works included in the exhibition further illuminate the master's genius and reveal meanings hidden in the imagery. Every print and drawing in the exhibition is reproduced and numerous comparative illustrations are offered. Provenances and references for all works, a bibliography, and an index are supplied.

Table of contents

Director's Foreword
Philippe de Montebello

Acknowledgments
Nadine M. Orenstein, Manfred Sellink

Lenders to the Exhibition

Note to the Reader

The Elusive Life of Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Nadine M. Orenstein

Pieter Bruegel as a Draftsman: The Changing Image
Martine Royalton-Kisch

Images to Print: Pieter Bruegel's Engagement with Printmaking
Nadine M. Orenstein

"The very lively and whimsical Pieter Bruegel": Thoughts on his Iconography and Context
Manfred Sellink

The Importance of Being Bruegel: The Posthumous Survival of the Art of Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Larry Silver

Catalogue
Jürgen Müller, Nadine M. Orensetin, Michiel C. Plomp, Manfred Sellink

Bibliography
Index
Photograph Credits

About the authors

Nadine M. Orenstein is Associate Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Press reviews

Library Journal

"Given the unique coverage of Bruegel and other period artists as well as the printmaking history, this book is essential for art collections."

The World of Interiors

"Take this book into your lap and pore over it. Bruegel's drawings provide long and rewarding lessons in looking."

Choice Reviews Online

"This is the most comprehensive study of Bruegel's graphic work to date ... Highly recommended for every library."

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Exhibition

Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints

Among the most innovative and influential artists of his age, the beloved sixteenth-century Netherlandish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1525/30–1569) was also a remarkable draftsman and designer of prints. This exhibition includes the largest number of drawings by the artist ever assembled, in addition to some fifty prints designed by him, as well as a selection of drawings formerly attributed to Bruegel. Culled from European and North American public and private collections, this exhibition presents the largest number of Bruegel's drawings ever assembled and reflects recent advances in scholarship that have dramatically changed our view of the artist's work.

During the past two decades our conception of Bruegel's graphic oeuvre has changed dramatically. Most important, in the early 1990s, a large group of Alpine studies, long considered central masterpieces in the artist's work, were removed from his oeuvre because it was discovered that they were drawn on paper produced after the artist's death. In turn, a number of drawings that were once not considered to have been made by Bruegel are now accepted as by his hand. This exhibition examines this newly defined Bruegel and reasseses his importance and impact as a graphic artist.

Among Bruegel's foremost artistic achievements is the naturalistic rendering of landscape in pen drawings and engravings, which capture vast expanses of mountains and valleys. Many of his landscapes were created during and just after the artist's journey to Italy in 1552–53. The expansive Alpine vistas that he witnessed during that trip left a lasting impression on his work.