A Winterwonderland by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Hi, welcome to Stories of Art. My name is Karel Huidekoper and today I want to show you this wonderful winter landscape made by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Now, he made a bunch of them but I specifically wanted to focus on this one because this one has so many little details in it and little bits and pieces of stories that are told in it which really is the core thing Pieter Brueghel did with his art. He didn't just tell one story, he enriched it with dozens and dozens of others. But let me start by reminding you that you could like and subscribe. You know, it really helps this channel so please do that and of course tell me in the comments what you think about these videos and tell me what other art you would like me to talk about. Do you have any favorites? Well, let me know. All right, let's get into this. By first telling you a little bit about the background of Pieter Brueghel. That, by the way, is the way I'm going to pronounce his name because that is the Dutch-Flemish way of pronouncing it which, let's be honest, is the correct way because that's where he was from. He was born in Breda and died in Brussels. Both are in the Duchy of Brabant which was a large province in the Low Countries. I say was because for the past 400 years it's been cut into two separate parts. One part is in the Netherlands and one is in Belgium but when he lived it was still one united big duchy. He trained probably in Brussels, he traveled to Italy at some point during his education and when he came back in 1555 he settled in Antwerp which is in Flanders, not that far away. And there he worked mostly as a print maker which was a fairly unusual thing to do. Most artists would aspire to be a painter and make some prints as a sort of secondary job but there's a lot unusual about the career choices he made. For instance, he traveled to Italy, as I said before, and that was a fairly usual thing to do for artists at the time. They would go there and they would study ancient monuments and the modern art which at the time would be the work of people like Michelangelo. And then when they got back up north they would reference these works in their own art like this one by Maarten van Heemsker. Here we see a self-portrait with the Colosseum in the background. And a painting like this one he could hang up in his shop or in the painter's guild or use almost as a billboard for the fact that he had been in Rome and could therefore do all these fashionable things with ancient monuments. But Pieter Bruegel never did any of those things. We have some sketches and drawings from his time in Rome and from his travels to and from Rome but there are no big monuments on it. In fact the only one I know from inside Rome itself is this drawing that shows some buildings and one of the small ports along the river Tiber. All in all this trip there took some four years and he didn't draw the Colosseum once as far as we know. And as I said when he got back he settled in Antwerp and there he started working for or with a publisher named Hieronymus Koch which in Dutch Flemish is not a word by the way. And this publisher published books and prints and books of prints. Now this was a fairly new form of art. Printing techniques had been developed for about a century by the time he started working on it and it had led to a market for new images. Whereas painters before had mostly painted religious subjects because churches were the main clients for painters and of course there were portraits. But with the invention of books of prints people would buy a collection of different images in one go and that meant that they wanted some more variation than just crucifixions or other religious subjects. Which is why printmakers started to invent them. For instance they started to make illustrations of sayings. And this is a perfect example. Here we see a very big fish that has washed ashore. Someone is cutting it open with a comically large knife and all kinds of smaller fish come out. It's a drawing by Pieter Brueghel by the way. And if you look closely you see that all these smaller fish that come out of the bigger fish have even smaller fish in their mouths. Now at the front there's a little boat and there's a fisherman and a man with I guess his son. And he seems to be explaining something. He's pointing at the big fish. Now this is a drawing that was made into a print and this is that print. You can see it's this mirror image. That's because of the process used to make it into a print. But here we have the written underneath. Which translated to English says This of course has something to do with the rich and famous. Using the smaller folk to become more rich and more powerful. At the time it was apparently thought that fish could grow to enormous sizes simply by eating other fish. And sometimes huge fish like sperm whales, which they thought were fish, would wash up ashore on the beaches of the low countries. It still happens And just like people who become too powerful and get toppled by their own power, fish could grow so big that they thought that they lost control and would wash ashore. Now perhaps if you look at some of the details you will be reminded of a different painter. I mean look at this sort of walking fish in the background. It's quite reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch, isn't it? But Bosch had died 30 years before. The thing was he had become extremely famous during his life but even more so afterwards. And the ruling family of the low countries, the Habsburg family, with its courts in Brussels, were huge fans. Many of the best works by Hieronymus Bosch are now in the Prado in Madrid simply because Philip II of Spain, who was the ruler of the low countries after 1555, bought so many of them for his own enjoyment. And in this case the publisher, Koch, had Bruegel make a drawing in the style of Hieronymus Bosch. And when he printed it, claimed that it was a design by Bosch. It says so right there in the corner. And Pieter Bruegel had a knack for making these drawings and designs for prints. A famous series he made was of the Virtues and the Vices. There are seven of each. Let me show you just one. This is the Virtue of Charity. And in the center we can see a personification of charity which is a woman who holds the hands of children and a heart in her other hand. And on her head there's a bird which is supposed to be a pelican. I know it doesn't look like a pelican but what it's doing is it's piercing its own side to feed its children with its own blood which is a symbolic expression of charity. Pliny the Elder wrote that pelicans actually do this which is not true but there you go. And clearly Bruegel had never seen a pelican or even a picture of one. But the rest of the picture is filled with miniature stories that act out the seven Here in the front they are clothing the naked. And there they are feeding the hungry. And a little to the background we can see people giving drink to the thirsty. And above that they're visiting prisoners. Then more to the center we see them burying the dead. And if we go slightly below that I suppose they are giving shelter to the homeless. And finally over here they are ministering And to cover all the seven virtues he made six more of these and then an accompanying series of seven deadly sins. And all of them have a personification in the center and then lots of variations and little stories around the main theme. And although there's lots of other aspects about his work that are great this is one of them that made him very famous. Just the ability to fill up a picture full of these tiny little stories that sometimes work in a single theme but not always. And they make for pictures that you can explore for ages on end and endlessly find new stories in. Which is exactly what this winter wonderland here is. Now obviously this is not an engraving, not a print, but a painting. And as it happened in 1563 Pieter Bruegel moved from Antwerp to Brussels and there he married the daughter of a prominent painter called Pieter Koeker van Aalst. He had probably been his master during his training ages before and when he moved to Brussels he started painting. Although he may have painted before but this is when his painting career took off in earnest. And one of the things he did was he started making painted versions of the drawings and prints that he had produced earlier. And it's that style of adding little details and stories that apparently worked well with his clients and they possibly already knew his prints. So let's get into this one. We have to ignore the fact that these days the painting has a because at the time when it was made it didn't. Titles weren't given to paintings yet as a rule but have been given to paintings once museums started displaying them which is centuries later. And what we see here is a winter landscape. The sun is setting. It must have been a short day because that's what they are in the winter as far north as this is clearly situated. It's a town. We see several different types of buildings and architecturally they all fit in with the 16th Many have thatched roofs and there's one house with a stepped cable. These are typical for the low countries of the period and particularly for Flanders. The first ones there were made in Ghent in the 12th century and then they slowly spread through Flanders and Brabant over the centuries. So as I said typical architecture for the region. In the distance we see a ruined castle which would not be atypical to see because medieval castles like this one had lost their strategic value by the time this painting was made. And there's so much happening like this house or barn that people are building and this larger house has an entire group of people gathering around and if we look closer you can see that they are warming themselves by a fire. It looks to be an inn of some kind because there's a lady here walking around with a jug and she's filling up someone's mug with I hope warm wine but more likely beer. And there are people sitting around on benches using an empty barrel as a table but they're clearly drinking judging by the jug again. There are even people using this hollow tree for shelter and on the tree there's a sign that signals that this is indeed an inn. And in front of this there's a whole group of children just throwing snowballs at each other. Some are making them. One girl here has thrown a boy on the ground and is rubbing snow in his face. And then there's this little hut that is clearly cheaply built. It even has an old basket for a chimney. Some have identified it as a house of someone who has a disease. People who were suspected of having the plague or some other infectious disease were often separated, isolated from the rest of the town to avoid the diseases spreading. So it would make very little sense for one of those little huts to be placed in the center of a town. But if we look at the man that comes out of the door he seems to be carrying a rattle. It's a device to shake and it makes a noise and people would hear you coming so they could get out of the way. And they were typically used by people suffering from leprosy. Now that little house even has a tiny little winter garden at the back and someone is working in it. And then just below that there's a pond with children playing on the ice. No one is wearing skates though. Ice skating would become a favorite winter pastime in the coming generations but at this time if any ice skates were around they would only be owned by the very rich. So we see a girl walking on the ice pulling a boy on a makeshift sled made out of a stool. Other kids are using their whirlabouts on the ice and I suppose with the slippery surface that must work pretty well. Others are just walking around awkwardly on the slippery surface. And then there's some using these little sleds. They're pushing themselves forward with these sticks with spikes on them. And of course there's the river that's frozen solid. There we can see people crossing it carrying big heavy backpacks. Those are the kinds of backpacks that were used by traveling salesmen. They are taking advantage of the fact that the river is frozen and that means that they don't have to use the bridge to get into town. Because usually you would have to pay a toll for a bridge and those tolls would be for the use of the bridge. But often authorities would also levy taxes on some products that were taken in or out of the cities. And one of the typical things that would always be taxed would be alcohol. That's either wine or beer. And someone is clearly avoiding paying those taxes by pushing and pulling an entire barrel across the ice on a sled. But the largest group of people is gathered around in the foreground in front of a building. All the way in the foreground we can see someone slaughtering a pig with a lady that's trying to catch its blood. And the child there is holding a pigskin filled with blood as well. This was of course a commodity not to be wasted. And they're not done. There's another pig being brought forward. Now the slaughtering of pigs is often associated with pictures of winter. If you depicted the four seasons the slaughtering happens in the winter. And I suppose it's the time to do it. Especially when so many people have gathered in your town and you need to feed them. Because there's a big group gathered just behind these people. And they seem to be crowding this table. There someone is sitting making a mark in a ledger and with the other hand he accepts some money. So if I had to venture a guess he's receiving taxes. And just over here there are two more people. They are looking in a different ledger and there someone is giving a birdcage. A basket kind of thing. And that's the sort of thing they use to transport chickens or other poultry in. Now taxes were often paid in money but just as often in goods. And one of the good reasons that I think they're paying taxes here is the placard on the wall of the building. You can see that it has a double-headed eagle on it. And that is the family crest of the Habsburg family. The family that ruled the Low Countries. So it's likely that something government-like is happening here. And that would of course also explain why all these carts are parked just outside. Because that could mean that they are declaring their goods. But there is another explanation for them gathering there. And one of the fun things about these paintings by Brueghel is that you could have two different stories in one painting that can both be true. It just depends on how you look at them. Which makes them such excellent conversation starters. And the other story is there is this little group of people that seems to just have arrived in town. There's this man. We can't see his face. But we can see he's a carpenter because he's carrying a saw. And he's leading a donkey or an ass. And possibly that ox that's walking alongside it. Or it's standing still and it's just there. But we can't really tell. And on the back of the donkey sits a lady. And I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think that perhaps she's pregnant. Because that of course makes them Joseph and Mary who have come to travel to Bethlehem and are now looking for a place to stay in an inn. And obviously we know there's no place in the inn. And it's made pretty clear from the amount of people that are already there. But in that case all of those people waiting outside this house are not there to pay taxes. They're there to be counted for the census. Because of course that's why Mary and Joseph had to go to Bethlehem. And that suddenly makes this a Christmas picture. Where, for the sake of this painting, Bethlehem is clearly placed in the Low Countries. Now I keep saying this but the fun thing is of course that there are so many little details and so many little stories that you can find in them. And I'm sure that even though we've just looked at it in detail, but if you were to spend a little bit more time with a magnifying glass in front of the painting, you would find more. So it's one of those paintings that will never bore. You can look at it again and again and again and we actually know that this painting was a big success. Even though we have no idea who he sold it to. But we know that it was in high demand. And that is because of his sons. You see Pieter Brueghel's painting career didn't last long. Because it basically started in 1663 and he died in 1669, six years later. And he was somewhere between 39 and 44 years old. We're not sure about the year of his birth. And when he died he left a wife and three very young children. Two of those children were his sons. One was called Jan and the other Pieter. They both became painters and are the reason we refer to Pieter Brueghel as Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Even though his sons would spell their last names differently. But they made a business out of painting. Painting their own stuff but also copying pictures of their fathers. And they continued their father's business of designing prints and making painted versions of popular printed pictures. But because they copied their father's work you can see this picture in at least four different museums. And I assume in a whole range of private collections as well. Because there's an unknown number of them that were actually made. But only one of them was made by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. And if you want to see that one you have to go to Brussels to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts or the Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van Belsen. But before you go don't forget to like and subscribe. And if you subscribe, because for some reason you haven't already, you could of course then hit that little bell icon that appears. Because then you get notified when I make new videos. Well, in any case, thank you very much for watching and hope to see you again soon. Bye!