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This
fascinating full-length study examines all works by the great Flemish
painter Pieter Bruegel within the wider setting of art during his
lifetime.
Manner of Man Magazine Editorial Recommendation
For our readers, many of whom are also serious book collectors often
seeking out fine monographs in the arts, it is our great pleasure to recommend
without reservation Larry Silver's exceptional volume on the great Pieter
Bruegel published and distributed by Abbeville Press, New York.
In our view, Abbeville Press is without question producing the finest
works in print in the United States, if not the world. The quality of the book in terms of design and colour
reproduction of the masterworks is extraordinary, and the
binding construction is unsurpassed for its sheer weight and quality attention to detail.
The Pieter Bruegel
volume is resoundingly our editorial choice and recommendation for this issue due to depth of
scholarship and the grand scale and beauty to which the volume is produced. It
is surely be a wise addition to your fine library collection.
The recent rediscovery in Spain of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s lost painting, The Wine of Saint Martin’s Day,
has created even more interest in this much-loved artist, who was one
of the Netherlands’ two great masters of satire and fantasy, along with
Hieronymus Bosch. Although these two artists never met each
other—Bruegel was born around 1525, a decade after Bosch’s
death—numerous features link them; indeed, Bruegel painted several
demon-infested hellscapes directly inspired by the older master, and he
was known in Antwerp as a “second Bosch.” But Bruegel is most famous for
his peasant scenes, often humorous and packed with anecdote, and for
his landscapes, which poignantly evoke Nature’s changing seasons. His
legacy to Netherlandish art was the enduring popularity of both these
genres, as well as the artistic dynasty he founded, beginning with his
painter sons Pieter the Younger and Jan Brueghel.
Critics have often remarked how Bruegel’s art, so keenly observed and richly detailed, seems to preserve a world in miniature. In this new monograph, Larry Silver, an eminent historian of Northern Renaissance art, serves as our guide to that world. He leads us expertly through Bruegel’s complex and fascinating iconography, allowing us to see his paintings and drawings from the same perspective as his sixteenth-century countrymen. Silver situates Bruegel within the visual culture of his time—exploring, for example, his relationship with the print publisher Hieronymus Cock—and within the broader context of Netherlandish history. All of Bruegel’s surviving paintings are reproduced here, with many full-page details, as well as all of his prints and representative works by his contemporaries and followers.
This volume on Bruegel complements Silver’s widely praised monograph on Hieronymus Bosch, which was published by Abbeville Press in 2006. These two books are the most authoritative and best-illustrated studies of their respective subjects, and together they present us with a panorama of Netherlandish art’s emergence into the distinctive form of the Northern Renaissance.
Larry Silver, who received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, is Farquhar Professor of Art History at the University of Pennsylvania. Besides Pieter Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch, his other books include Art in History, Rembrandt’s Faith, and Peasant Scenes and Landscapes.
