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Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder or known for as “Peasant
Bruegel” (fig.1), a nicknamed to distinguish himself from his other Brueghel family who are
also well-known artists. It was in 1558, where he decided to dropped the “h” and sign his
name as “Bruegel” to avoid confusion with his sons who are also painters while his relatives
still using the name “Brueghel” or “Breughel”. Actually, his family background was
unknown and had no records of it. Pieter Bruegel was born in 1525 at Breda, Netherlands and
was assumed came from a peasant background. He was a Netherlandish Renaissance who
was recognized for his work of painting and printmaking. Bruegel was greatly known for his
landscapes and peasant scenes and was considered one of the most significant Flemish artist
of 16th century (Wisse, 2002). He began his career being as an apprentice of Coecke van
Aelst, a famous Antwerp artist of tapestry designs. Bruegel became as a master in the Guild
of Saint Luke of Antwerp in 1551 and soon after that, he left to Italy, probably by way of
France. Bruegel spent time there working on his paintings that mostly landscapes (Nadine,
2001). After that, he returned to Brussels settled at there and in 1563, Bruegel married
Coecke van Aelst daughter, Mayken. Since then, painting become his main activity, the
patrons including wealthy Flemish collectors and members of the church sought for his
famous works of paintings. Bruegel had two sons, both well known as painters, Pieter
Brueghel the Younger (1564-1638), Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625) and a daughter
about whom nothing is known. In 9 September 1569, Bruegel died in Brussels and buried in
Kapellekerk (Dipalma, 2018).

Pieter Bruegel the Elder have a lot of notable artworks and the media he used are
mostly oil or tempera on a different kind of surfaces such as panel, wood and canvas that are
covered in white gesso and animal glue. He also had used pen and ink on a brown paper in a
few of his previous drawings. Early on his career, Bruegel started off by drawing for
engravings by the Antwerp publisher Hieronymus Cock (Sellink, 2007). The etching of
Bruegel’s drawings was done by Cock and it had been made countless of copies because of
his unusual and naturalistic drawing that capture people’s attention. During his journey in
Italy for study research, Bruegel had produced several of paintings especially landscapes that
were inspired by his surroundings and also a little touched of Italian art when he was an
apprentice of Coecke van Aelst. However, he still managed to run away from the Italian
mannerism and create his own genre as a Flemish artist (Wisse, 2002). Later around in 1557,
he became more focused on painting landscapes also produced a numerous of peasant scenes
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in everyday life as his subject. The paintings of Bruegel are mostly in a lower horizon line to
show his uniqueness picturing from land to sky as well as his great of composition. As he
maturing through the years, Bruegel’s paintings are showing more of a large figure than his
previous works that are portraying some religious subjects (Dipalma, 2018).

One of Pieter Bruegel’s artworks that are most captivating is The Blind Leading the
Blind (fig.2). There are six blind men walking with sticks passing by across the stream and
there are a few houses as well as a hill behind the church and trees at the background shown
in the painting. It can be seen that the blind leader who is also leading his other blind
members slowly falling down in the following sequence. The leader was the first to fall
backwards motion into the stream and subsequently made the others to fall down too. The
second person was pulled by the sticks him and the leader holds and was shocked by it while
the third person probably knew what was about to happened and the others was still calm
know nothing about it. In this painting, Bruegel used tempera paint and mixed with water
soluble glue that are also called as “distemper” method for this painting on linen canvas. The
colour scheme is warm tone that consist mostly brownish-orange, red-brownish, green, grey
and black. This colour applied with smooth brush strokes. The shapes that dominant in this
painting that can be seen is organic shapes or free-form shapes that have a very few straight
lines and also shape of objects such as cone and pyramid. There is no certain pattern that are
repeated in this painting. This artwork has intriguing stories in it that attracts the attention on
how the blind lead the other blind and the message that being conveyed. It is also fascinating
at the same time looking at the peaceful scenery village of a very clear light blue sky with the
hill and the trees are tall as the buildings filled the landscapes.

The Storm at Sea (fig.3) was the last painting of Pieter Bruegel before he died. In this
artwork there are probably twelve ships because it can hardly to be seen at the end of the
background. There are several of flocking birds that can be seen soaring up in the sky and a
big whale swept by the storming sea. The clouds are starting to get dark as well as the sea rise
higher and the tides are moving roughly. It can be seen that the ships moving away from the
dark side probably a sign of a storm is coming. The ships also look unstable as the rough
waves moved it from side to side. This painting used oil paint on a panel. The colour scheme
is dark theme that mostly using shades of black such as black, grey, green and white. The
medium applied using thick strokes to show the texture of storming sea. There is not much of
objects in this painting because it is mainly only organic shapes or free-form shapes and it
can be seen a few of straight lines from the ships also there is no pattern applied in it. This
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artwork holds heavy emotions by using a lot of dark colours and showing a rough storm
started to come. The sorrowful scene looked as if something bad had happened and it is
uncontrollably burst out mixed of angry and sad emotion.

The artworks and masterpiece Pieter Bruegel the Elder had made proved that he is one
of the pioneer as a Flemish Renaissance that influenced other artist with his own genre
paintings, peasant scene and landscapes.
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Bibliography
Manfred Sellink, Bruegel : L'oeuvre complet, Peintures, dessins, gravures, Gand, Ludion,
2007.
Wisse, Jacob. “Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1525–1569).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art
History.
"Pieter Bruegel the Elder Artist Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. 2020. TheArtStory.org
Orenstein, Nadine, ed. Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints. Exhibition catalogue.
New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001.
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Figure 1: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Figure 2: The Blind Leading the Blind

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Figure 3: The Storm at Sea

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Reference Link

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/brue/hd_brue.htm

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/bruegel-the-elder-pieter/

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2004/11/how-spot-bogus-bruegel

https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/the-artist-and-his-art-royal-museums-of-
fine-arts-of-belgium/0wLSR15NPP5yIg?hl=en

https://www.academia.edu/9045046/
_Eng_The_political_consciousness_of_Pieter_Bruegel

http://www.pieter-bruegel-the-elder.org/