PIETER BRUEGEL

Sources that shed light on his life, very few. Year of Birth Bruegel (c. 1530-1569) is calculated approximately based on the date (1551) entry into the guild of St. . Luke. Flemish Vasari - Karel van Mander in his "Book of Painters", published in 1604, called Bruegel native of Breda, a small town on the border of present-day Belgium and Holland. Other sources mention the name of the fictional village of Breughel, from which the artist and was allegedly his name.

As reported by Mander, Bruegel began as an apprentice at a large Antwerp painter Peter Cook van Aalst. In 1544, Peter entered the studio of a leading Antwerp publisher prints Hieronymus Kock. Their cooperation will continue until the death of Bruegel.

In 1551 he was admitted to the Antwerp Guild of St. . Luke, where he received a master craftsman. Around 1552, Peter went to Italy. After Lyon and the eastern part of France, he falls in southern Italy. The following year, Bruegel arrived in Rome, where he met with the famous Italian miniaturist D. Clove.

For years, held in Rome, is the earliest signed and dated paintings by Brueghel, "Landscape with Christ and the apostles on the Sea of ??Galilee" (figures were written by Maarten de Vos). In Italy itself, or shortly after the return of Bruegel painted "View of Naples, which produces a magnificent impression.

Around 1554 the artist returned to his homeland. In 1555 I. Koch produces a series of landscape prints of Bruegel. During these years, the workshop Coca engravings of paintings by I. Bosch. His phantasmagoric vision of encrypted language of allegory, painting style had a significant impact on the further work of Bruegel. Appear to work, where in the infinite, a comprehensive peace is lost, absorbed man, "Sower" (1557), "The Fall of Icarus. " In 1558 Brueghel devoted himself mainly to painting.

New stage in the art of Bruegel begins in 1559 when he wrote "Battle of Carnival and Lent. " Composition of the painting - a view from a window on an area of ??Flemish town where the last day of carnival people accompanies the carnival and the submission of the battle between carnival and Lent. The plot of this one, probably inspired by the edicts of Philip II, the ascetic and cruel, demanding strict observance of religious rites. At this time in the country, defeated, rolled a wave of bloody terror perpetrated by the Spanish Inquisition.

"Instead of endless, absorbed in itself the people are indifferent to him and the eternal landscape was vibrant, bustling human element. Realizing the cosmic vastness of the world, he felt, and other cosmic - human, human masses.

The same ideas in the paintings of Brueghel develops "Flemish Proverbs" (1559) and especially "The Games Children" (1560). In the latter shows a street strewn with children playing, but the prospect of it has no limit, rather than as might be argued that gay and pointless fun children - a symbol of an equally absurd of all mankind. In late 1550-ies Bruegel the unknown remains the art of sequence addresses the problem of man's place in the world "(p.

Photo — «Pieter Bruegel»

B. Klimov).

Since 1561 the artist turns to other subjects. He creates a scene, its sinister fantastic if not better than Bosch. So in "Triumph of Death" (1562) Skeletons kill people, and the vain attempt to find refuge in a giant mousetrap, marked with a cross. In "Mad Grete" (1562) old, folkloric character in armor and a sword ready to plunge into the jaws of hell - hell, if only to satiate their greed - the personification of greed and vice.

After his marriage in 1563 to Maika Cook, daughter of Peter Cook van Aalst, Bruegel moved to Brussels. They had two sons, who subsequently became famous artists - Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Velvet.

Most of the paintings of this period is written on request of collectors. Among the patrons of the artist - de facto ruler of the Netherlands, Cardinal Antonio da Granvela Perrin, Nicolas Yongelink Antwerp collector, a Dutch scholar and humanist Abraham Ortelius.

Save nearly 25 works by Brueghel the period, but this is only part of doing them - wrote VE Suslenkov. - The main characters in many scenes in Brussels of the period ("Sermon of John the Baptist", "Massacre of the Innocents," "The Conversion of Saul", " The Census at Bethlehem, "" Carrying the Cross ") is difficult to distinguish among the groups or crowds of people, the artist emphasizes the invisibility of an event or happening in the everyday miracles during his life, thus exacerbating their feelings. So, in" Christ Carrying the Cross, "a large crowd, carrying over glumyascheysya Cross of Christ, contrasted with his unobtrusive figure, a true center and meaning of human history. "

In the Netherlands the development of great art, and indeed the whole world of fine art series of paintings by Bruegel's "Four Seasons" is just as crucial, is the same artistic revelation, as vaneykovsky Ghent altar.

In 1565, the artist carried out a series of landscapes, consisting of four pictures (but more common view - that there were six or twelve) on the seasons. These works occupy a place in art history is quite exceptional - not being afraid of falling into an exaggeration to say that there are no images of nature, wherever its grandeur and all-encompassing grandeur was as organically fused with the very lively sense of her life.

LD Lyubimov wrote about this cycle:

"The meaning of human existence - in a merger with nature at work, through which people have not simply lost in the universe, and takes it all, its rightful place.

"Gloomy Day" (Spring), "The Reaping" (summer), "The Return of cattle" (autumn), "Hunters in the Snow (winter) - it is truly a magnificent panorama of nature, as it were, the apotheosis of landscape painting. Nowhere in the world of art, either before or after the Fall, for example, was depicted with such force as to breygelevskoy picture, where the brown-green and red tones are the artists to create some kind of special painting of the flesh, from which he constructs his images. And it seems to you that you can hear the cows mooing, the clatter of horses' hoofs, the cries of mushers and inhale fragrant damp rusty foliage.

Photo — «Pieter Bruegel»

And all this against the backdrop of grandiose mountainous landscape, where the regal nature of the fade. And in "Hunters in the Snow," you literally permeates the cold, you hear the rustle of flying magpies in the frosty air, tired breath of dogs, the heavy tread of the hunters, and beckon you comfort and warmth homeland.

Faith in man and also fear for the human outbreak of optimism and pessimism again, determine the impasse doomed the last work of this brilliant and tragic masters and not yet found a true balance in his worldview.

Paintings from the series "Seasons" - is an epic vision of nature through the eyes of a peasant worker earth, forever tied to the land. "

In the years 1567-1569 Bruegel wrote a few paintings on the theme of national life.

"Apparently, in 1567 Brueghel executed one of his most capital works -" The Peasant Dance "- says RB Klimov. - This picture does not look like his previous works. Her characters are depicted in Brueghel unusual for a large scale, and general differs closed a pathos and rigid rationality. Overweight and strong figures of peasants to move up to the viewer, are drawn with care, but reserved and laconic.

The artist are not interested in the atmosphere of peasant festivities, nor picturesqueness of individual groups, but the peasants themselves - their appearance, facial features, habits, character gestures and manner of move. His view of callousness to the lens and the manner of placing the figure differs cold mathematical precision.

Stopped the movement of each member of this festival is one, but it is complete in itself features a single image of the peasantry, and supports the main features emerge from the foreground. Bruegel constructs an image of the peasantry, he gives it a rigid shape and naked. He reveals in it the best, worst. And the very nature of the composition as it draws a line under this way - sums up the powerful and awesome force of the peasantry.

In this particular painting is born of his method of household peasant genre, as a special branch of painting. But its significance is not only that. For here the first time in the history of art deliberately and clearly expressed the image of the people. "

In another painting - "The Peasants' party" - the sharpness of vision of the national character even more, and leading figures have gained even greater power.

Among the latest works by the artist is dominated by dark, hard picture: "Misanthrope" (1568), "Cripples" (1568), "Thief nests" (1568), including the famous "Blind" (1568).

"Ever since the Middle Ages liked to portray a blind guide leading the blind. Such images are designated" Inverted World ", which is the opposite. And, perhaps, Bruegel returned to this theme of his earlier paintings.

And Brueghel was thinking about the spiritual blindness of a man - or of blind chance, blind fate, managing human life.

Bruegel's contemporaries were captured by arguments about the true faith, reasoned that the one who does not confess, like a blind man.

Bruegel died September 9, 1569 in Brussels.