The Painter and The Buyer

Last updated
The Painter and The Buyer
Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Painter and the Buyer, ca. 1566 - Google Art Project.jpg
Artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Year1565
TypePen and ink on brown paper
Dimensions25.5 cm× 25.1 cm(10.0 in× 9.9 in)
Location Albertina, Vienna

The Painter and The Buyer is a 1565 pen and ink on brown paper painting by Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The alternative title is The Artist and The Connoisseur.

Contents

The painter is thought to be a self-portrait of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

Content

The artist holds a paint brush in his right hand, on the left past the viewer, presumably to the object he paints. A second man looks over his shoulder at the resulting picture. This work is for the viewer, however, face down. Bruegel is limited entirely to the presentation of two dissimilar men: the painter drawn in detail with disheveled hair, bushy eyebrows and unkempt beard, and the more vague outline reproduced viewer behind him with pince-nez, long nose and mouth slightly open. [1]

Interpretation

In the Middle Ages, artists were fixed in a craft tradition supported by clients such as church, aristocracy and later the bourgeoisie. The depiction of painter and buyer or artist and connoisseur already reflects the new humanistic concept of art, which makes the painter dependent on the subjective judgement of a connoisseur. [1] According to Hans Ost there is an "ignorant observer" who "with his mouth stupidly open, laboriously peers through his glasses over the artist's shoulder. This is the connoisseur and amateur, as we later find him in the circle of Roman antiquarians around Philipp von Stosch" [2]

The identity of the painter, often assumed to be a self-portrait of Bruegel, is uncertain; it is also conceivable that he is a portrait of Hieronymus Bosch. [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pieter Brueghel the Younger</span> Flemish painter (1564–1638)

Pieter Brueghelthe Younger was a Flemish painter known for numerous copies after his father Pieter Bruegel the Elder's work, as well as original compositions and Bruegelian pastiches. The large output of his studio, which produced for the local and export market, contributed to the international spread of his father's imagery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pieter Bruegel the Elder</span> Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painter

Pieter Bruegelthe Elder was among the most significant artists of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes ; he was a pioneer in presenting both types of subject as large paintings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Brueghel the Younger</span> Flemish painter (1601–1678)

Jan Brueghelthe Younger was a Flemish Baroque painter. He was the son of Jan Brueghel the Elder, and grandson of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, both prominent painters who contributed respectively to the development of Renaissance and Baroque painting in the Habsburg Netherlands. Taking over his father's workshop at an early age, he largely painted the same subjects as his father in a style which was similar to that of his father. He gradually was able to break away from his father's style by developing a broader, more painterly, and less structured manner of painting. He regularly collaborated with leading Flemish painters of his time.

Brueghel, Bruegel or Van Breugel was the name of several Dutch/Flemish painters from the Brueghel family:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kunsthistorisches Museum</span> Art museum in Vienna, Austria

The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal dome. The term Kunsthistorisches Museum applies to both the institution and the main building. It is the largest art museum in the country and one of the most important museums worldwide.

<i>The Peasant Wedding</i> Painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Peasant Wedding is a 1567 genre painting by the Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painter and printmaker Pieter Bruegel the Elder, one of his many depicting peasant life. It is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Pieter Bruegel the Elder enjoyed painting peasants and different aspects of their lives in so many of his paintings that he has been called Peasant-Bruegel, but he was an intellectual, and many of his paintings have a symbolic meaning as well as a moral aspect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting</span>

Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting represents the 16th-century response to Italian Renaissance art in the Low Countries, as well as many continuities with the preceding Early Netherlandish painting. The period spans from the Antwerp Mannerists and Hieronymus Bosch at the start of the 16th century to the late Northern Mannerists such as Hendrik Goltzius and Joachim Wtewael at the end. Artists drew on both the recent innovations of Italian painting and the local traditions of the Early Netherlandish artists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans Bol</span> Flemish painter

Hans Bol or Jan Bol, was a Flemish painter, miniature painter, print artist and draftsman. He is known for his landscapes, allegorical and biblical scenes, and genre paintings executed in a late Northern Mannerist style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucas van Valckenborch</span> Flemish painter (c. 1535–1597)

Lucas van Valckenborch or Lucas van Valckenborch the Elder was a Flemish painter, mainly known for his landscapes. He also made contributions to portrait painting, and allegorical and market scenes. Court painter to Archduke Matthias, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands in Brussels, he later migrated to Austria and then Germany, where he joined members of his extended family of artists who had moved there for religious reasons.

<i>Netherlandish Proverbs</i> Painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Netherlandish Proverbs is a 1559 oil-on-oak-panel painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder that depicts a scene in which humans and, to a lesser extent, animals and objects, offer literal illustrations of Dutch-language proverbs and idioms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobias Verhaecht</span>

Tobias Verhaecht (1561–1631) was a painter from Antwerp in the Duchy of Brabant who primarily painted landscapes. His style was indebted to the mannerist world landscape developed by artists like Joachim Patinir and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. He was the first teacher of Pieter Paul Rubens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marten van Cleve</span> Flemish painter

Marten van Cleve the Elder was a Flemish painter and draftsman active in Antwerp between 1551 and 1581. Van Cleve is mainly known for his genre scenes with peasants and landscapes, which show a certain resemblance with the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Marten van Cleve was one of the leading Flemish artists of his generation. His subjects and compositions were an important influence on the work of Pieter Brueghel the Younger and other genre painters of his generation.

Events from the year 1525 in art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tronie</span> Type of Dutch / Flemish Baroque painting

A tronie is a type of work common in Dutch Golden Age painting and Flemish Baroque painting that depicts an exaggerated or characteristic facial expression. These works were not intended as portraits or caricatures but as studies of expression, type, physiognomy or an interesting character such as an old man or woman, a young woman, the soldier, the shepherdess, the "Oriental", or a person of a particular race.

<i>The Land of Cockaigne</i> (Bruegel) Painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Het Luilekkerland — known in English as The Land of Cockaigne — is a 1567 oil painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. In medieval times, Cockaigne was a mythical land of plenty, but Bruegel's depiction of Cockaigne and its residents is not meant to be a flattering one. He chooses rather a comic illustration of the spiritual emptiness believed to derive from gluttony and sloth, two of the seven deadly sins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pieter Isaacsz</span> Danish-born Dutch painter

Pieter Isaacsz was a Danish court and portrait painter from Dutch origin who worked in a mannerist style on historical, biblical and mythological subjects. He was also a tapestry designer and art-dealer who spied for both the Netherlands, Denmark, and, eventually, for Sweden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peeter Baltens</span> Flemish Renaissance painter

Peeter Baltens, Pieter Balten or Pieter Custodis, was a Flemish Renaissance painter, draughtsman, engraver and publisher. Baltens was also active as an art dealer and poet. He was known for his genre paintings, religious compositions and landscapes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pieter van der Heyden</span> Flemish printmaker

Pieter van der Heyden was a Flemish printmaker who is known for his reproductive engravings after works by leading Flemish painters and designers of the 16th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicolaes Jonghelinck</span> Art collector from Antwerp (1517–1570)

Nicolaes Jonghelinck (1517–1570) was a merchant banker and art collector from Antwerp. He is best known for his collection of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Frans Floris. His brother was the sculptor Jacques Jonghelinck.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brueghel family</span> Dutch and Flemish painter family

The Brueghel family, also spelled Bruegel or Breughel, is an extended family of Dutch and Flemish painters which played a major role in the development of the art in Brabant and Flanders throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. Due to the organisation in guilds and training being done with established painters and not in schools or academies, painters often passed on the knowledge from father to son, and there are many examples of Flemish painting families spanning two or more generations, e.g. the Francken family, which had at least ten painters spanning four generations. The Brueghel family produced the largest number of major painters of all Flemish families.

References

  1. 1 2 Christian Vöhringer: Pieter Bruegel. 1525/30 – 1569, h.f.ullmann 2007 ISBN   978-3-8331-3852-2 S. 9
  2. Hans Ost: Das Komische an der Kunstwissenschaft in: Das Komische in der Kunst Hg. Roland Kanz, Böhlau Verlag 2007 ISBN   978-3-412-07206-3 S. 6. f
  3. Rose-Marie und Rainer Hagen: Pieter Bruegel d. Ä. um 1525 – 1569. Bauern, Narren und Dämonen, Taschen Verlag 1999 ISBN   3-8228-6590-7 S. 21 f.