looking for pieter bruegel

7/30/2019 Looking for Pieter Bruegel

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Looking for Pieter BruegelAuthor(s): Perez ZagorinSource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Jan., 2003), pp. 73-96Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3654297 .

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Look ing f o r P i e t e r B r u e g e l

Perez ZagorinI. Since the late nineteenthandearlyyearsof the twentiethcentury,when

PieterBruegelceased to be seen simply as the naive artistPieterthe Droll andPeasantBruegel,chosen,as his firstbiographerCarelvan Mandersaid, "fromamongthepeasants" o be "thedelineatorof peasants,"'he has been generallyrankedamong the foremost artistsof the Netherlands and northernRenais-sanceas well as one of the greatestof Europeanpainters.His oeuvre is broad,consistingof moralallegoriesandsatires,panoramic andscapes,religiousandbiblical themes,anda varietyof genreand secular scenes. Anyone who looksattentivelyat his forty-oddpaintings,his drawings,andthe printsmade afterthe latter s likely to noticenotonly theirstrongformal structure ndoutstand-ing skill in organizingpictorial space, their commandof the complexdisposi-tion of large masses of figures, and theirmasterlysureness and economy offiguraldraftsmanshipn thedepictionof humanbeingsineverykindof postureand action,but also that many of them seem to be animatedby some idea.Gazingat suchengrossingandintenselyvital images of human ife andnatureas his paintingsof proverbsand children'sgames, festive peasants,the sea-sons, andreligioussubjects ike the towerof Babel, Christon the road to Cal-vary,and thetriumphof death, he viewer is boundtorecognizethat hepainter,in thewordsof EdwardSnow,quotingCezanne,was "athinker n images."2 tis accordinglynota denial of his characteras a profoundandoriginalobserver

1 CarelvanMander,Het Schilder-BoekHaarlem,1604);VanMander'sbiography f Bruegelis reprintedn Englishtranslationby FritzGrossmann,BruegelThePaintings: CompleteEdition(London, 1955), 7-9, andinNorthernRenaissanceArt1400-1600: Sources andDocuments,ed.WolfgangStechow(EnglewoodCliffs, N. J., 1966), 38-41. R.-H. Marijnissen,Bruegel TheEl-der (Brussels, 1969), reprints he Flemish text in his notes, 87-98, with an Englishtranslation,12-16;theFlemish textis also reprintednHans-JoachimRaupp,Bauernsatiren.EntstehungundEntwicklungdes bduerlichen Genres in der deutschen und niederlandischenKunstca. 1470-1570 (Niederzier,1986), 322-23.2 EdwardSnow, nsideBruegel:ThePlay oflmages in ChildrensGames(NewYork,1997),15; see the whole discussion,"Thinking n Images,"13-32.

73Copyright003byJournal f theHistory f Ideas, nc.

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74 PerezZagorinof humanbehaviorand the worldaroundhim thatone cannothelp wonderingwhat attitudes,values, and particularphilosophy underlyhis works. On thisquestion,however, there has never been agreement.His monumentalpeasantscenes, forinstance, ike thePeasant WeddingFeast (see figure1)andPeasantDance in Vienna,which are among his most famous works known throughthousandsof reproductions,have elicited very divergentreadings.3They havebeen variouslyperceivedas comic andsympatheticrepresentations f peasantlife by a humaneobserver,as detachedandaccuratedescriptionsby an objec-tive recorder,as graphic allegories of humanfolly, as visions of an organiccommunitywhichis passingaway,as productsof a literaryandpictorialgenreof satiricalcommentarieson peasant crudity,gluttony,andlechery,and as anexpressionof the social condescension and moralsuperioritywhichhumanistintellectualsand the dominant anded and urbanclasses of the painter'stimeare said to have felt towardpeasantsand popularculture.These differencesandcontradictions espectinghis peasantpaintingsaremerelyan exampleofthemoregeneralproblemof interpretingBruegelwhichis repeatedlyencoun-teredin discussions of manyof his compositions.Thereis no other sixteenth-centuryartist whose workshave been understoodn such differentandoppo-site ways.4Bruegel's era was of course a periodof greatconflict and religious andpoliticaldivision causedby the advance of the ProtestantReformationanditsconflict with the Catholic church.During his lifetime, Lutheranism,Calvin-ism, andanabaptismwere spreading hroughout he Netherlandsand northernEuropedespitecensorshipandpersecutionandmanypeople of all classes un-derCatholicrule werechangingtheirreligious allegiance.Intheyearsprior ohis deathin 1569 he also witnessed the growingmanifestationsof religio-po-liticaloppositionfollowed by the outbreakof armedresistanceand revolutionin the Netherlandsagainstthe policies andgovernmentof its absentee sover-eign, Philip II of Spain. Among the disputedissues in the understanding fBruegel'sworkis how he reacted o these momentouseventsand whether heywere reflectedor alludedto in some of his compositions. In tryingto answersuchquestionsand to elucidate the meaningof various of his works,arthisto-

3 Forsome reviews of these divergentreadings,see Raupp,Bauernsatiren,271-73; WalterS. Gibson,"BruegelandThe Peasants:A Problemof Interpretation,"ieter Bruegel TheElder:TwoStudies (Lawrence,Kan., 1991); EthanMattKavaler,Pieter Bruegel: Parables of OrderandEnterprise Cambridge,1999), 24-28.4 Bruegelscholarshaveoftencommentedon thedifferencesandcontradictions n the inter-pretationsof the painter'swork; see, for example Grossmann,Bruegel ThePaintings, 37; theremarksby Marijnissen,passim; John E. C. White, Pieter Bruegel and TheFall of The Art

Historian(Newcastle, 1980);Raupp,Bauernsatiren,ch. IV.The collection of essays in the vol-ume on Bruegelin NederlandsKunsthistorisch aarboek,47, ed. JandeJonget al. (1996), 247-71, containsa comprehensivebibliographyon the artist.



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Figure 1:PieterBruegel,the Elder(c. 1525-1569),Peasant WeddingKunsthistorichesMuseum, Vienna,Austria.



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76 PerezZagorinrians,besideexamininghis artistic nheritance,milieu,andimagery n relationto the productionsof contemporary rtistsandpredecessors,have also lookedfor clues to Bruegel's thoughtin the influences thatmight have shaped hisoutlookas result of his personal,social, and intellectualaffiliations.Unhappily, he established acts of Bruegel's biographyare few andmuchsmallerthanforthatof any majorartistof the sixteenthcentury.The section onhis life in thecatalogueof theoutstanding xhibitionof his drawingsandprintsin 2001 at the MetropolitanMuseumof Art (New York)rightlydescribedhispersonalhistoryas "stilllargelya mystery."'There s no recordof his placeordateof birth,althoughhe is generallybelievedtohave beenbornbetween1525and 1530. Nothingis knownof his formalschooling, if any,or abouthis train-ing as an artist.In 1552-54 he made ajourneyto Italy perhapsas far south asSicily, butexcept for his contact and collaboration n Rome with the eminentpainterof miniaturesGiulioClovio, littleis knownof what he did there.He leftbehindhim no lettersor writingsof any kind,nor are thereany reportsof hisbeliefs oropinionsfromeither friendsor witnesses.Nearlyall the informationwe have about him comes from his brief biography n van Mander'sfamousPainter'sBook,published n 1604, thirty-fiveyearsafterhis death. Occasion-ally, a new piece of informationconcerningthe artistcomes to light. Thus, itwas recentlydiscovered thatat the bankruptcy ale in 1572 of the propertyofthe merchantJeanNoirot, the Masterof the Mint at Antwerp,his possessionsincluded a large collection of about fifty paintings, five of which, a winterscene andfourpeasantscenes, wereby Bruegel.Since Bruegelapparentlydidno publiccommissions for churches,religiousfoundations, own councils, orotherbodies, and,exceptfor his prints,whichwere sold to the public,workedsolely forprivate ndividualsandpatrons,6his information s valuable n add-ing to whatis knownabout heearliestowners of his paintingsand their aste ascollectors.7The sparsenessof documentedknowledgeabouthimhas neverthelessnotdeterred successionof Bruegelscholars rompropounding nsupported pecu-lations andhypothesesconcerninghis life, career,and associations.An early

5 Nadine M. Orenstein,"TheElusive Life of PieterBruegel the Elder," n Pieter BruegelTheElder:Drawings and Prints (New Haven,Conn.,2001), 2; this work is henceforthcited asCatalogueNew York 001.6 VanManderrecords,however,thatattheendof Bruegel'slife thecity council of Brusselscommissionedhimtopaintsomepieces commemoratinghecompletionof theBrussels-Antwerpcanal,but thathis deathprevented heexecution of thisproject;NorthernRenaissanceArt 1400-1600, SourcesandDocuments,40.7LucSmolderen,"Tableaux e JeromeBosch, de PierreBruegell'Ancien et de FransFloris

Disperses en VentePubliqueAla Monnaied'Anvers en 1572,"RevueBeige d'Archeologieetd 'Histoirede l 'Art,64 (1995), 33-41; see also thediscussionof Noirot andhispictures nKavaler,Parables of OrderandEnterprise,51-54.



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Pieter Bruegel 77instance was Charlesde Tolnay's mportantbook of 1935, whichattempted o"penetratehe artist's secretthought"and "stripaway his masks"in ordertoidentifyhis philosophy.8Tolnayvisualized him as a culturedRenaissancehu-manistwho associated n Antwerpwith a groupof distinguishedscholars,art-ists, and authorssuch as the celebratedgeographerAbrahamOrtelius(1527-1598), the greatprinterandpublisherChristophePlantin(c. 1520-89), andtheDutch writer andengraverDirck Coornhert 1522-90), all describedas reli-gious libertineswhoseunorthodoxopinionsBruegelshared.Amongthesemen,some belongedto thereligioussect known as the FamilyorHouseof Love, ofwhichTolnaysuggested hatBruegelwasalsoamember.He believed the sourceof the painter'sideas lay in fifteenth-centuryPlatonic philosophersand hu-manists ike Nicholas of CusaandMarsilioFicinoand nthewritingsof ErasmusandSebastianFranck.As the dominant heme in his depictionof human ife,Tolnayattributedo him theconceptionof anupside-downortopsy-turvyworld,the realmof absurdity, ools, andfolly. Bruegel was the "platonicien" f this"monderenvers6,"contemplating t with the same detachmentas he wouldanotherplanet. In contrast to this attitude was the artist'sconceptionof thegreatnessand impersonalityof nature,to whose eternal laws humanbeingswere subject.9 OtherthanBruegel'sfriendshipwith Ortelius,however,whichcan be documented,Tolnayhad noproofof theartist'srelationshipsnAntwerpand the conclusions he drew from them or any evidence that Bruegel couldhave been acquaintedwith the worksof theparticularhinkerswhom he iden-tified as sources. LaterBruegel scholarshiphas been much less inclined tosuch over-intellectualizedexplanationsof the artists'swork. Thus, a leadingcontemporary istorianof Bruegeland Netherlandisharthascautionedagainstexaggeratingthe philosophical aspects of his art, noting that "there is littleevidence ... thatBruegel's picturesare as reconditeor crypticas is so oftenbelieved."10 n the scholarly literature'sattemptto uncover the meaning ofBruegel'sworkthroughanexaminationof his biographyandpersonalrelation-ships, it is easy to find repeatedexamples of questionablesuppositions anddoubtful inferencespresentedas facts. Tolnaywas the first to affirmthattheartistwas a religiouslibertine,a memberof theFamilyof Love, andconnectedin Antwerpwith intellectuals of heterodoxbeliefs in religion. Although theonly one of these claimsthat can be substantiated, s I have said above, is hisrelationshipwiththegeographerOrtelius, heyhave neverthelessbeenrepeatedby Benesch, Stechow,and othernoted Bruegel scholars."Pierre Francastel's

8 Charlesde Tolnay,PierreBruegel l'Ancien(2 vols.; Brussels, 1935), I, intro.and 20.9Ibid., 7-19.o0WalterS. Gibson,Bruegel (London,1977), 10, 11." OttoBenesch, TheArtof TheRenaissance inNorthernEurope(Cambridge,Mass., 1945,96; WolfgangStechow,Pieter Bruegel theElder (New York,1959), 19, 22, 25.



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78 PerezZagorinbook on Bruegel of 1995, while rejectingthe importanceof Platonist influ-ences in the painter'sart, speaks nevertheless of his possible contacts withhereticalgroupsandconsiders tcertain hat ogetherwith Orteliushefrequenteda select libertine milieu of cultivated friends such as Plantin andCoornhert.12In some recent essays by David Freedberg,we encounter,along with manyhelpful observations, similar instances of questionablestatements about theartistsuch asthathis knowledgeof antiquitywas "a crucialpartof his culture,"that he belonged to "the most refined and serious of Antwerp'sintellectualcircles,"that he appearsquite frequently n the correspondenceof AbrahamOrtelius,and that he was not an orthodoxCatholic.13

Actually,all that it is possible to ascertainof Bruegel'sknowledgeof an-tiquity is what can be surmised from his compositions, which are far fromsuggestingthat t was a central ngredientof his culture.Whileevidenceof theinfluence of Raphael,Michelangelo, and other Italian artistshas been seen insome of his works,it is evident that he was not a classical artist.He was muchmore stronglyaffectedby the pictorialtraditionsof Netherlandishart andthecreations of predecessors ike the fantastic nventionsof Bosch (d. 1516) andthe greatlandscapesof Joachim Patinir(d. c.1524) thanby the classicism ofItalianRenaissanceartto whichhe was exposed duringhis Italian ourneyandthroughcopies in printsandengravings.14 In The Towerof Babel he used theRoman Colosseum as a model,'1butclassical subjects,such as the drawingofThe Calumnyof Apelles, dated 1565, are a rarity n his work.The sourceonwhich he based this drawing s unknown,andwe cannot assume because theallegorical figures in it are designatedby Latin names that he could read aLatin iterary ext.16 As hasalreadybeenpointedout,positive evidence is lack-ing to provehis involvement in a circle of Antwerphumanistsor his religiousheterodoxy.Thebulkyvolume of Ortelius'scorrespondence ontainsno letterseitherto orfromBruegel.He is mentioned n it only threetimes, thoughnotby12 PierreFrancastel,Bruegel (Paris, 1995), 36, 91; this workwas posthumouslypublishedand editedby Francastel's tudents.13 ThePrintsofPieter Bruegel TheElder,ed. DavidFreedbergTokyo,1989), intro.,15, 24,and the editor'sessay in the samevolume, "AntwerpduringBruegel'sLifetime:The Economicand HistoricalBackground," 7.14 Onthe influence of Italianpainterson Bruegel'swork, see, forexample,thecomments nTheCompletePaintings of Bruegel,notes andcatalogueby Piero Bianconi (New York, 1967),87, andGibson,Bruegel, 133-40. In a recentessay Jane ten BrinkGoldsmithdiscernsthe inspi-rationof Italianart n the monumental haracter f Bruegel's late landscapesandpeasantpaint-ings; "PieterBruegelThe Elderand TheMatterof Italy,"SixteenthCenturyJournal,23 (1992),205-34.15There are two versions of this painting, reproduced n Grossmann,Bruegel ThePaint-ings, nos. 50-51.16 TheCalumnyofApelles is reproducedwith comments n bothHans Mielke's recentcata-logue, PieterBruegel.Die Zeichnungen n.p., 1996),no. 63, andCatalogueNew York 001, no.104.



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Pieter Bruegel 79Ortelius.TwiceanItaliancorrespondentefers to him in passing,andhis nameoccurs again in a letterto Orteliusfrom Coornhert n July 1578, nine yearsafterBruegel'sdeath,expressingthanks andhigh praisefor the engravingofThe Death of TheVirgin, xecutedby PhilipsGalleafterthe grisaillepaintingby Bruegel, which Ortelius owned and of which he orderedengraved copiesmade in 1574 to send as gifts to some of his friends. Coornhert'setter,how-ever, says nothingto imply that he andBruegelever knew each otherperson-ally.17In addition o Ortelius,contemporary nd nearcontemporaryourceslikevanManderand a few otherdocumentsmentionby nameonly a smallnumberof individuals whom Bruegel knew or with whom he might have been ac-quainted.Among them were Pieter Coecke van Aelst, a distinguishedartistwith whom he is reportedto have studied and whose daughterhe married;HieronymusCock,the well knownpublisherof his printswhose businesswaslocatedin Antwerp;the Antwerpmerchantandgovernmentofficial NicholasJonghelinck,andthegreatprelateCardinalGranvelle,PhilipII'sprincipalmin-isterin the Netherlandsuntil his departuren 1564,both of whom wereadmir-ers and collectors of his work.Neither these noranyof his other known asso-ciations can license the conclusion of anotherprominentBruegelscholar CarlGustaf Stridbeck hat the artist's riendsnumbered ome of the most outstand-ing intellectualsof the time and that in Antwerphe was one of "a circle ofpoliticalandreligiousradicalhumanists" hat ncludedCoornhert ndPlantin.1'Inthe search orBruegel'sthought,a numberof Bruegelscholarshave alsoattempted o show that his artcontainspatrioticpoliticalallusions expressingopposition to the Spanish regime in the Netherlands.Francastelmaintained,for instance,thatBruegel'swas "une oeuvred'opposition"whichneeds to bedecipheredand whose lessons had to be hidden for political reasons.19Thisopinionwas echoed In the recent(1999) novel Headlongby the British writerMichaelFrayn,which centers on an art historian'sdiscoveryof an unknown

17 Ortelius,Epistulae,ed. J. H. Hessels (Cambridge,1887, repr.Osnabruck,1969),25, 178.Bruegel's TheDeath of The Virgins reproducedn Grossmann,Bruegel ThePaintings, no. 77;Galle's engravingof it is in CatalogueNew York 001, no. 117.18CarlGustafStridbeck,Bruegelstudien Stockholm, 1956),20, 29. Coornhert, nengraver,lived formanyyears in Haarlem n the provinceof Holland andit is hardly ikely that he couldhave been Bruegel's friend,even thoughHieronymusCock was the publisherof some of hisprints.An active supporter f theNetherlandsrebellionanda close associate of its leaderWill-iam of Orange, n his later life he became one of the foremostadvocates of tolerationand reli-gious liberty in the Netherlands.For his biography,see H. Bonger,Leven en Werkvan D. VCoornhert Amsterdam,1978). He consideredmen like PlantinandLipsiusto be "silent sitters"and"self-lovers,"andonce commented hat whereasOrteliuspreferred"asafe tranquillity," ehimselfvalued"virtuous ndusefulactivity"; hese statementsarequotedrespectively nGerhard

Giildner,Das Toleranz-Problemn denNiederlanden mAusgangdes 16.JahrhundertsLiibeck,1968), 135, andAlastairHamilton,TheFamily of Love (Cambridge,1981), 72.19Francastel,Bruegel, 27, 28.



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80 PerezZagorinpaintingby Bruegeland conceives the artistas a freedomfighteragainstSpan-ishtyrannywhoseworksare ull of politicalreferences.Such claims have some-times sought support n van Mander'sstatement hat when on his deathbed,Bruegelinstructedhis wife to destroya numberof his drawingswith inscrip-tionson them lest they get her intotroubleon accountof theirsharpandbitingcharacter.20These unknowncompositions would probablyhave been moralsatires,though,similarto a numberof others thathe did, and thereforedevoidof politicalreference.VanMander'sbiographydoes not offer anyhint thattheartistwas ever suspectedof religiousorpoliticaldissidence. In 1563, follow-ing his marriage,Bruegel left Antwerpat the behest of his mother-in-law olive in Brussels,theseatof theNetherlandsgovernment.One of his reasonsformaking hismove couldhave been toobtaincourtcommissions,butwhethersoornot, thechangeof residencewould seemto tell againstthe view thathe wasdisaffectedto the existing politicalorder.It is neverthelessquitepossible that, ikemanyNetherlandersn the 1560s,he could have disliked some of thepolicies of PhilipII'sgovernmentandespe-cially its persecutionof religiousdissent.One of thepaintings hathas seemedto lend itself to this view is TheMassacreof TheInnocents,of whichthere aretwo versions.Its subject,the biblical scene described n Matthew2:16, is theslaughterof the infant malechildrenof Bethlehem at KingHerod's order.Thesetting s a snow-coveredFlemishvillage where soldiers areshownseizingandkilling children amidst the pleas andlamentationsof parentsandvillagers. Inthe center of the pictureandobviouslyin commandof the action sits a black-cladfigureon a horse atthe headof acrowd of cavalry.21Ithas beenargued hatthepainting s an allusionto the cruel andpunitivetreatmentof a Netherland-ish communityby Spanishsoldieryandthatthemounted igurein black is theduke of Alva, whomPhilipIIdespatchedwithSpanisharmyunits to the Neth-erlands o suppress herevolt.22 othversions of thepaintingareundated,how-ever,and wereprobablydonearound1565-67,henceprior o the duke ofAlva'sarrivalin the Netherlands n August 1567.23 The red-uniformedmen in thepicturehave also been identified as locally raisedWalloontroopsrather han

20 See van Mander'swords in NorthernRenaissanceArt 1400-1600: Sourcesand Docu-ments,40.21 The two versions of this paintingarereproducedn Grossmann,Bruegel ThePaintings,nos. 110-13.

22 StanleyFerber,"PeterBruegel and The Duke of Alba,"RenaissanceNews, 19 (1966),205-19.23 Fordiscussions of the date, see Grossmann,Bruegel ThePaintings, 199, and the critical

surveyof dates andattributionsn the catalogueof the 1969 Bruegelexhibitionin the BrusselsRoyalMuseumof Fine Artscommemoratinghe400thanniversary f theartist'sdeath,Bruegel:ThePainter andHis World Brussels, 1969), 96-97.



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Pieter Bruegel 81Spanish.24 hebiblicalepisodeis presented,moreover, n sucha dispassionate,matter-of-factmanner hat t is difficult to regard t as anexpressionof protest.If Bruegelmeantto makea political statement n this work,it is well hidden.The Massacreof The Innocents s similar to anotherof Bruegel's paintingsona New Testamentsubject,TheNumberingat Bethlehem n Brussels,datedbythe artist1566, which also depictsa Flemishvillage in winter.25 his suggeststhatthe two works are relatedandmayboth be simply unproblematicllustra-tions of the gospel story.Anotherexampleof a work that has been taken to containa politicalmes-sage is the enigmatic drawing,TheBeekeepers(see figure 2), usually datedaround1567-1568, whose meaningseveralBruegelscholarshaverecentlydis-cussed.26tpicturesthreebeekeepers wearingpaddedgarmentsandprotectivewicker screens thatcompletelyhide theirfaces, who are workingwith somebeehives.Behind them attherightstandsa treeholdingaman who has climbedup one of its limbs. A Flemish inscription n the artist's own hand states that"He who knows where the nest is has theknowledge;he who robs it has thenest." The eerie impression conveyed by the maskedfigures, their apparentunawarenessof the man in the tree,and the inscription's mplication hat he isrobbinga birdnest,althoughno nest can be seen, all make the drawingappearsomethingof a riddle.A recentreadingby Jetske Sybesma explains it as a veiled attack on Ca-tholicism and theSpanishregime,in which thebeekeepersrepresent he secretagentsof theInquisitionwho arerepairing hehives, the symbolof the Catho-lic church. She relates it to the notorious anti-Catholicsatire,The Beehive ofTheHolyRomanChurch,by theCalvinistpropagandistPhilippeMarnixde St.Aldegonde,who laterbecamethesecretaryof William of Orange, he leaderofthe Netherlandsebellion.2 Marnix's ract,however,was notpublishednDutchuntil 1569 and hence probablypostdatesthe drawing.Aside from this awk-wardfact, Sybesma's interpretationnvolves numerousguesses and improb-abilities, forinstance thatBruegelwas worried hat his widow would be inter-rogatedby the Inquisition,whichmakeit unconvincing.

24 CharlesTerlinden,"PierreBruegelle Vieux et 1'Histoire,"RevueBeige d 'Archaeologie td'Histoirede l 'Art,2 (1942), 244-45. Terlindens criticalof politicalinterpretationsf Bruegel'swork and sees him as an observerwho paintedthe world as it is, presentedthe truth withoutcriticizingit, andrefrained rompassing judgment.25Reproduced n Grossmann,Bruegel ThePaintings, nos. 115-19, and see the comment,200.26 Reproducedn CatalogueNew York 001, no. 107;theaccompanying ommentarybriefly

notes some interpretations f its content.27JetskeSybesma,"TheReceptionof Bruegel's Beekeepers:A Matterof Choice,"Art Bul-letin, 73 (1991), 467-78.



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82 PerezZagorin--uY.?YZr ~~.??(i ) ?C'C'' "? ~r~?-? I--- 4.ti`i

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~P?. r,? -' 11$~~f?~4;c-'- 'i C~r;gC~nL Ar ' LZI ~. L~A ?? ~brl~T~rc~C~. Ff~n~i j~etli'?i-- j~t~

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.,??~, .-v.. Cg~ r, rg~Lj~?l ~ rr?tliFigure2: PieterBruegel,the Elder(c. 1525-1569), TheBeekeepers;StaatlicheMuseen zu Berlin.

A moresubtle andelaborateaccount s given in the recentbook onBruegelby EthanMattKavaler,who associatesthedrawingwith an assortmentof con-temporaryprintsandliterary exts to perceiveits meaningin primarilymoralterms.In accordwith his conceptionof Bruegel'soeuvre as a whole, he seesTheBeekeepersas the artist'sdepictionof a societyunderstressfromthepres-sure of economic and social change."The uxtapositionof the nest robberandthebeekeepers,"he claims, "suggestsanoppositionof systems."The nestrob-beris pursuinga separatepersonalgoal, and "obliviousto the keepersbeneathhim ... has implicitly renounced the ideal of harmoniouscollective industryand mutualdependence;he has climbed above the otherworkersandoptedforfree agency."Kavalerrelates this observation n turnto the sixteenth-centuryexpansionof commercial apitalismandthenewspiritof self-interest ndprofit-seeking in Antwerpand the Netherlands,which stimulatesentrepreneurshipand challenges fortune but underminescommunityties and social harmony.Viewing the work in this light as the representation f a communal ethic op-posedto individualenterprise,he arguesthat ts distinctive structure"suggestsa threat o anestablishedand effective social hierarchyand theonset of a divi-sive individualisticethos." Moregenerally,he concludesthat it picturesto theviewer a world in conflict in which the interestsof differentgroupsare op-posed andstandards f behavior n dispute.28To understandTheBeekeepers nthis way, however,places a very heavy burdenof interpretation ponit that itcan hardlybear.The manin the tree,for example, mightbe merely a villager

28 Kavaler,Parables of OrderandEnterprise,237, 253-54, and the entirediscussion,233-54.



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Pieter Bruegel 83robbinga nest,a common-enoughoccurrence hatcauses loss to no one, whilethe beekeepersare too occupied with their work to take notice of him. Thedrawing's inscription,moreover,need have no referenceto the beekeepers nmaking the practical point thatpossessing somethingof value is betterthanknowingabout t.

II.Of all theassociationsattributed o Bruegelthatmightthrowsome lighton his intellectualdevelopmentand philosophicaloutlook, the only one forwhich solid evidence exists is his friendshipwith Ortelius,the owner of hispaintingTheDeath of TheVirgin.Knowledgeof theirrelationship,however, salmostentirely imitedto what Orteliussays in theLatineulogy orcommemo-rationhe wrote about the deceased artist n his AlbumAmicorumor Book ofFriends,which has been called "the most sensitive analysis of Bruegel's art[that]we have from the sixteenthcentury."29Keepingan albumof this kindwas a commonpracticeof manyscholars andliterarymen of the time.Itspur-pose, as in Ortelius'scase, was to collect the autographsof friends and theirexpressionsof regard.Thecontentsof suchbooks reflected the classical inter-ests and humanisticcultureof thecollector andthe contributors.The entries nOrtelius'salbumincludedpoems, addresses,engraved portraits,and deviceswhichhis friends offered him in tribute. n it he also insertedstatementsof hisown, among them his eulogy of Bruegel, written about 1573, which he saidwas "dedicatedn grief to the memoryof his friend"who had died fouryearsearlier.30 hick with classical allusions, it extols the artist as the most perfectpainterof his age, so trueto nature hathis works werereally works of naturerather than of art. Among his encomia Ortelius also observes that Bruegel"paintedmanythingsthatcannotbe painted[Multapinxit,hic Brugelius,quaepingi nonpossunt],as Plinysaid of Apelles,"andthat n allof his works "moreis alwaysunderstood han is painted [Intellegiturplus semperquampingitur],as Pliny said aboutTimanthes" Pliny,NaturalHistory, xxxv.50, 74). Theselast comments do not imply thatBruegel's was an esoteric art which hid itsmeaning.Whatthey do is exalt the painter'srankby placinghim in the samecategory as the foremost artists of antiquity, ncludingApelles, reputedlythegreatestof all, whom the elder Pliny discussed in the famous accountof an-cient paintershe gave in his NaturalHistory.Erasmushadpreviouslyquotedthe secondof these sayingsby Pliny,a well knowncompliment, n reference othe workof Durer.31

29 Gibson, Bruegel, 199. I have used the facsimile reproductionof the album in AlbumAmicorumAbrahamOrtelius,ed. JeanPuraye(Amsterdam,1969).30Ortelius'sLatineulogy is recordedon f. 12 of theAlbum;Marijnissen,103-4,printsboththe Latin original and an English translation;an English translation s included in NorthernRenaissanceArt 1400-1600: Sources andDocuments,37-38.31 ForErasmus'sstatement,see NorthernRenaissance Art 1400-1600: Sourcesand Docu-ments, 123.



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84 PerezZagorinAt the time he pennedhis eulogy of BruegelOrteliuswas renownedas ascholar and eruditegeographerandcompilerof maps. With the exceptionofhis friend GerardMercator,he was the most important artographerf the six-teenthcentury.32he firsteditionof his atlas, TheatrumOrbisTerrarum, ub-lished in Antwerp n 1570 with a dedicationto Philip II of Spain,establishedhis fame. Beside laterLatineditions,thisworkwas also issuedin epitomesandin numerous ranslations, oing throughat leasttwenty-fiveeditionsduringhislifetime.33nrecognitionof his greatreputation,he kingin 1573 awardedhimthe title of GeographerRoyal, which was personally presentedto him by hisrepresentativehe duke of Alva shortlybefore the latterdeparted he Nether-lands. It needs to be kept in mind thatOrtelius received this honorat a timewhenpartsof the Netherlandswereinfullrevoltagainst heSpanishmonarch'sgovernmentandtheblood was not yet dryfromthe duke of Alva's repressivemeasuresas GovernorGeneral of the provincesappointed o crush the rebel-lion.The circle of humanists of which Ortelius was a member,and to which

Bruegelscholarshabitually efer, ncluded hecelebrated lassicalscholar, ditorof Tacitus,andpromoter f neostoicismJustusLipsius; heSpanishpriest, heo-logian, and HebraistBenito AriasMontano,who spentsome yearsin Antwerpandwas an adviser o thedukeof Alva;andtheFrenchmanChristophePlantin,the most importantprinterand publisherin the Netherlands,whose firm inAntwerpbroughtout all the editions of the Theatrum rom 1579 on. All threewere among the contributors o Ortelius'sAlbumAmicorum.Because of hisrole as publisher,Plantin was probablythe center of this circle.34A man whoconstantlyaffirmedhis loyalty to PhilipII'srule,he hadthe distinctionof pro-ducingone of thegreatmonuments f sixteenth-centurycholarship,heAntwerpPolyglot Bible of 1572, of which Arias Montanowas the editorandthe king32 Unlike Mercator,Orteliusdid not devise any mapprojectionsbutdevoted himself to thecriticaleditingandartisticpresentationof maps;see the accountof him in Dictionary of Scien-tific Biography,ed. CharlesC. Gillispie (16 vols.; New York,1974), s.v. His work andachieve-ments as a geographerare the subjectof the recent well illustratedcollection of essays com-memoratinghe400thanniversary f his death,AbrahamOrteliusand TheFirstAtlas, ed. MarcelvandenBroecke,Petervan derKrogt,PeterMeurer Westrenen,1998);see also thebiographicalsketch in the introduction o Ortelius'sAlbumAmicorum,1-8, and the essays by Leon Voet,"AbrahamOrteliusandHis World," nd MarcelP. R. vandenBroecke,"Introductiono TheLifeand Workof AbrahamOrtelius(1527-1598)," in AbrahamOrteliusand TheFirst Atlas.33 Fora list of editionsof Ortelius'sTheatrumOrbis Terrarumn Latinand other anguages,see AbrahamOrteliusand TheFirstAtlas, 379-81.34 OnLipsius,AriasMontano,and OrteliusandtheirassociationwithPlantin,see Hamilton,TheFamily ofLove, chs. IV-V;B. Rekers,Benito AriasMontano(1527-1598) (London, 1972),passim; Perez Zagorin, Waysof Lying: Dissimulation,Persecution, and Conformity n EarlyModernEurope (Cambridge,Mass., 1990), 122-25;Lipsius'swork as a scholarandpopularizer

of neostoicism is discussed by GerhardOestreich,Neostoicism and TheModernState (Cam-bridge, 1982), pt. I, and MarkMorford,Stoics andNeostoics: Rubensand TheCircleofLipsius(Princeton, 1991).



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Pieter Bruegel 85the patron.As a reward orhis services,Philip gave Plantinthe title of Typog-rapherRoyal in 1571 and with it the profitable monopoly of the printingofmissals andbreviaries or the Spanishclergy.35Although seemingly a conformingCatholic,it has been known since thelate nineteenthcenturythatPlantinwas a secret adherentof the hereticalFam-ily of Love sect,withwhose founderandprophet, hemerchantHendrikNiclaes(1502-c.1580), he hadclose ties. He printedmanyof Niclaes's writings,whichthe latter's followers in several countries distributedwidely throughunder-groundchannels.Niclaes's financialsupportwas vitalto him both in establish-ing his printing irm and in maintainingts existencethroughvariousdifficul-ties.36When at the end of the 1560s a schism divided the Family of Love inwhich Niclaes's formerdiscipleHendrikBarrefelt,otherwiseknown as Hiel orLightof God, emergedas a rivalprophet,Plantinbecame one of his followersand theprinterof some of his tracts.37Althoughhe was occasionallysuspectedof printinghereticalbooks andholdingheterodoxopinions,he wasneverpros-ecutedfor anyof these offenses andremainedunscathed n a periodof severereligious persecution. nthe course of theNetherlands ebellionhe maintainedcordial relations not only with Spanishofficials and governmentauthoritiesbutalso withthe rebel leaderWilliam of Orange,publishing hepropaganda fboth sides withoutsufferingharmfromeither.38TheFamilyof Love belongedto thespiritualistwing of the ProtestantRef-ormation,a typeof religionthatbrushedaside the literalandhistoricalsenseofScriptureas a deadletter and held thattrueChristianityhadnothingto do withanyvisible churchor creed.Intheirplace, it exalted thespirit dwelling withinthe individual believer throughwhich God communicates His presence andtruth.Familism disdainedritesandceremonies,which it lookeduponas child-ish toys suitableonly for the uninitiated.Niclaes's works emphasized love,peace, and salvationthrough heindividual'sexperientialcommunionwiththespiritwithin by which he or she becomes "godded"or deified. Indifferent odoctrinaldivisions and confessional quarrels, he Familistsconsidered them-selves as havingtranscended heinferiorexternalreligionof theProtestant nd

35Rekers,BenitoAriasMontano,76.36 ForPlantin's elationshipwithNiclaes and heFamilyof Love,see MaxRooses,ChristophePlantin ImprimeurAnversois(Antwerp,18902),ch. IV;HermanDe La FontaineVerwey,"TheFamily of Love,"Quaerendo,6 (1976), 219-71; Hamilton,TheFamily ofLove, chs. IV-V.TheFamily of Love and its members as an undergroundeligious society arediscussed in Zagorin,Waysof Lying,ch. 6.37 See the accounts in Rooses, ChristophePlantin, ch, IV, and Hamilton,TheFamily ofLove, ch. V.38 See Hamilton,passim,andLeonVoet,TheGoldenCompasses 2 vols.; Amsterdam,1969-72), 1, 55, 66-68, 102-4, 105-13.



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86 PerezZagorinCatholicchurches n embracinga spiritualand inwardfaiththat aimed at per-sonal identificationwith God.39The Bruegelscholarswho have spokenof the Familyof Love in connec-tion with the artisthave generallyoverlookedthe fact that the sect's membersconsideredit licit andjustifiableto deny their true beliefs before the world,convinced thatas long as their hearts were inwardlypure, they committednosin by conformingoutwardly o the statechurcheswherever heyresided. As Ihave shownelsewhere,the rationalization nd methodicaluse of dissimulationto avoid persecutionand mislead hostile inquirerswas one of the sect's hall-marks, causing both Catholic and Protestantecclesiastical and political au-thoritiesto accuse its membersof religious deceit andhypocrisy.40Itsrelianceon dissimulationwas in full accord with the prophetNiclaes's own teaching;for he himself had almost always lived a clandestineexistence under a falseidentityandwas consistentlyopposedto martyrdomor the sake of faith.Be-cause exteriorprofessionwas of no importance ompared o the supremacyofthe indwellingspirit,he instructedhis followers to conformto the worshipofthestate-supportedhurches rom whichtheywereinwardlyseparated. ntak-ing this position, Familism was part of the wider phenomenon known asNicodemism, a term derived from the Pharisee Nicodemus in the gospel ofJohn(John3:1-2),who believedin Christbut hidhis faith outof fear.Itwas inreference to Nicodemusthatthe FrenchreformerJohnCalvin denouncedas"Nicodemites"the Protestantsunder Catholic rule who concealed and dis-sembled their faithby attendingCatholic services to evadepersecution.41Ortelius,Lipsius,AriasMontano,andotherassociates of Plantinwerelike-wise affiliated with the Family of Love.42 Ren6 Boumans's comment onOrtelius'sreligionappliesto all of them:their Catholicism"wasonly intendedfor the outwardworld."43Connectionwith the sect, as Leon Voet noted, re-quiredfrom its adherents"the utmostsecrecyand ... thenecessityto blend,intheperceptionof the outerworld,with the denomination hat fitted thembest,be it Catholic,Lutheran,orCalvinist.""44 he Familists' belief in theirspiritualsuperiorityoordinaryChristianswas well suited o these humanists nd scholarswho regarded hemselves as anintellectualelite. Faced with the contemporary

39 For the natureof spiritualismas a type of religionand Familism as one of its manifesta-tions, see GeorgeH.Williams,TheRadicalReformation Philadelphia,1962),ch. 19 andpassim;Hamilton,TheFamily ofLove, chs. I-II.40 See Zagorin,WaysofLying, ch. 6.41 ForNicodemismas a doctrineand rationalization f religiousdissimulationand Calvin'spolemic againstit, see ibid., ch. 4.42 Ibid., 122-24;Hamilton,TheFamilyofLove, chs. IV-V;Voet,"AbrahamOrteliusand HisWorld."43 Ren6 Boumans,"TheReligious Views of AbrahamOrtelius,"Journal of The Warburgand Courtauld nstitutes,17 (1954), 377.44Voet,"AbrahamOrteliusandHis World,"27.



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Pieter Bruegel 87religious quarrelsandthe rebellionin the Netherlands, hey strove to remainabove the battle. At heartthey were neutralists,politiques, and dissemblerswho disguisedtheirtrueconvictions behind a facade of religious orthodoxyandsubmission to thepowersthat be. Ortelius'scorrespondence,as Boumansobserved,gives the impression thathe stood "entirelyoutside the political-religiousconflictof thesixteenthcentury."45verseto fanaticismandviolence,inwardlyfreeof allegianceto either the Catholicoranyof the greatProtestantchurches,andpreferring tabilityandorderwhatever hepriceto religious up-heaval and the misery and slaughterof civil war, he cultivateda privatisticethic of politicalabstentionanddetachment,desiringabove all to live quietlyandto cultivatehis own personal nterestsas faras possible.46WhetherBruegelhimselfshared hispointof view is an unanswerable ues-tion. Despitehis friendshipwith Ortelius,no evidence has been produced hathe hadany tie to Familism or subscribed o its tenets.47We have no reasontosupposeeitherthathe was ever anythingbut a Catholic. Some of his religiouspaintingsareclearlyCatholic n character.This is truenotonly of TheDeathofThe Virgin,but of such works as TheAdorationof TheKings, the Bosch-likeFall of TheRebelAngels, and Christ on The Road to Calvary.48

III.Among the works thatdemonstrateBruegel's exceptional originalityare his landscapes,which have a uniqueplace in NetherlandishandEuropeanart.Traveling throughthe Alps on his way to Italy,he probablymade manysketches thathelpedhimdevelophis distinctivevision of nature.Certainbeau-tiful and delicate drawingsof mountainscenerypreviously attributedo himhave recentlyceased to be acceptedas his.49 A numberof his surviving earlydrawings,however,dating romthe 1550s,likeMountainLandscapewithRidgeand Valley,MountainLandscapewith River and Travelers,LandscapewithSaintJerome,andAlpine Landscape(see figure3), reveal some of the charac-teristics of his approach o landscapeaiming at truth o nature.The spaces inthem arevast, reachingfar into the distance;the mountain ormsaremassive,45 Boumans,"TheReligious Views of AbrahamOrtelius,"376.46 See Nicola Mout'sessay,"TheFamilyof Love (HuisderLiefde)andTheDutchRevolt,"Britain and TheNetherlands,8, ed. A. C. Duke and C. A. Tamse (The Hague, 1981). Moutemphasizesthe Familists' avoidanceof takingsides andunwillingnessto fightor suffermartyr-dom, andcommentsthatthey "chose the middlepath,which was the way to safety" ( 92).47 On thispoint, see also the commentsin Gibson,Bruegel, 121.48 Reproduced n Grossmann,Bruegel ThePaintings, nos. 4, 77, 32-35, 63-74. In a recentessay Walter S. Melion emphasizedthe fact that Galle's engravingof Bruegel'sDeath of TheVirgin,which Ortelius commissioned, was a markedly Catholic image; " 'Ego enim quasiobdormivi.'SalvationandBlessedSleepinPhilipGalle'sDeathof TheVirgin fterPieterBruegel,"NederlandsKunsthistorisch aarboek,47 (1996), 14-53.49 The exclusion of these works fromBruegel'soeuvrewas due to Hans Mielke's revision-ary 1996 catalogueof his drawings;see Nadine M. Ornstein'scomments,CatalogueNew York2001, 266-67.



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88 PerezZagorin

c14p-? II-? ? 4 09 .

4b.4%1? .h~rJ,. ~

Figure3: PieterBruegel,the Elder(c. 1525-1569),Alpine Landscape;Musee du Louvre, Paris,France.high, andirregular,heir sides showing greatrock faces or dottedwith trees;the skies arewide andfilled withshapesof clouds;andthemen, animals,houses,churches, castles, andtowns visible upon the landscapeappearwithin it as asmall, integral partof the whole. While these works portray he grandeurofnature,otherearlydrawingssuch as StreamwithAnAngler and Cow PasturebeforeA Farmhouse,depictnatureon a smaller,more intimate scale with anaspectof tendernessandserenitysurroundinghe figuresin the scene.50In a notable essay of 1979, Justus MuillerHofstede held thatBruegel'sfriendshipwithOrteliuswas theonly reliablebasisforreconstructingheintel-lectualbackground f his art,andthereforeused it as thepointof departureoran interpretationof the painter's landscapes.51Addressing the question ofwhetherBruegel's feeling for landscapewas linked to a more general philo-sophicalperspective,he findstheanswer n the humanistoutlook of Orteliusas

50The drawingsmentionedabove arereproducedn ibid.,nos. 4, 9, 11, 12, 18, 19. I cannotagreewith the observationof MartinRoyaltonKisch, in anessay thatstressestheimportanceofItalian influences upon Bruegel's conception of landscape,that his drawingstransform and-scapeinto an"idealizedarenawithinwhichfiguresandanimalsarepitted againstnature,and thetransitorynsubstantialworks of managainstGod's durable reation"; PieterBruegelas Drafts-man:The ChangingImage," CatalogueNew York 001, 21.S1 ustus Miiller Hofstede, "ZurInterpretation on Bruegels Landschaft. AesthetischerLandschaftsbegriff nd Stoische Weltbetrachtung,"n Pieter Bruegel und seine Welt,ed. Ottovon Simson andMatthiasWinner Berlin, 1979).



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Pieter Bruegel 89shapedby Stoicism,with whichheheld thepainter elt akinshipas alandscapeartist.Ortelius'sStoicism was evidentin thesayingsby Cicero andSenecawhichhe placed as emblems on the world map in the TheatrumOrbis Terrarum's1592 and latereditions.52Miller Hofstede believes that thesequotationsserveaskeys to both his mind and his intentionsas a cosmographer.Theyallempha-size the smallness and insignificance of human affairs in comparison withphilosophy'svision of thegreatnessof thecosmos as a thought he wise under-stand.They also pictureman as bound to the earthandyet created,unlikethelower animals,to reflect upon the universe. The most prominentquotation sone from Ciceroenclosedin a cartoucheatthebottomof the two hemispheresof the world map, which declares: "Whatcan seem greatin human affairsto'someone who is acquaintedwith eternityand the vastness of the universe"(TusculanaeDisputationes, 4.17.37). Two sayings from Seneca speak of thelaughablenessof man's ambitionson an earthscarredby the warsof so manynations(NaturalesQuaestiones,I, praef.8), andexpressthe wish that "astheentiretyof the world comes into ourview, would that the whole of philosophycould occurtous"(EpistulaeMorales, 14.89.1).AnotherquotationromCiceroaffirmsthat "thehorseis created o pull and to carry, he ox to plow,thedog toguardand to hunt; man,however,was bornto contemplate he universe"(DeNaturaDeorum,2.37). MiillerHofstede also notes some additional tatementsof Cicero,notquoted n the Theatrum,hatOrteliuswould haveknown,whichpraisethebeautyand orderof the worldpervadedby mind,and the admirablethings of the earth, land, seas, and animals. This Stoic philosophy, MiillerHofstedethinks,recommended tself the moreto Orteliusbecauseit lent itselfto a Christian nterpretation nd harmonizedwith his religious positionwhichregardedconfessional strife with indifferenceanddislike.53Inthe lastpartof his essay he arguesthatBruegelwould have been influ-encedby Ortelius'sphilosophicalview inevolving his ownconceptionof land-scape.This conception picturedthe worldas rational,orderly,purposive,andbeautiful,thuscombininga rationalisticand an aesthetic attitude o nature.ItenabledBruegelto develop his landscapeartinto cosmic "Weltlandschaften"or"world andscapes"betokeninga newcontemplativeapproach o nature uchas appears n the five greatpaintingsbelongingto the series of The MonthsorSeasons in Vienna,Prague,and New York.54 hese famous worksdepict the

52 This worldmapwith the engravedcitations fromCiceroandSenecaat its bottom anditsfour comers is reproduced n Rodney Shirley,"TheWorldMaps in The Theatrum,"AbrahamOrtelius and TheFirst Atlas, 180. The Cicero citation at its bottom was already ncludedin themap in Theatrum's irst ed. of 1570, reproduced n ibid., 180; the other four citations first ap-peared n the copy in the 1592 ed.53 MUillerHofstede,"ZurInterpretationon BruegelsLandschaft,"129-37.54 Reproduced n Grossmann,Bruegel ThePaintings, nos. 79-84, 85-90, 91-98, 99-103,104-9.



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90 PerezZagorinchangesof the landscapeandthe differentphasesof nature tself. This vision,accordingto MUillerHofstede,reflects the Stoic outlook on the world, andheobserves how the peasantand other figures fit into these various scenes ascreatures elonging o a natural rder hat ncludesbothworkand eisure.Along-side the attitude owardnatureexpressedin theselandscapes,he also pointstoBruegel's recognitionof anothersphereof existence which he likewise de-picted,theirrational ndupside-downworldof humanaffairspresentednpaint-ingslike theNetherlandishProverbs,Christon TheRoadto Calvary,andSaul'sSuicide."5nsuch worksMuillerHofstede discernstheStoic wise man'spercep-tion of the vanity and nothingnessof human desires andmen's strivings forfame that was one of the leitmotifsof Ortelius'sphilosophyanda Stoic themelikewise fundamentaln Bruegel'slandscapes.56Bruegelis widely recognizedas thefirstEuropeanartist o treatnatureandlandscapeas anindependent ubject n its ownright.MuillerHofstede's discus-sion of the affinitiesbetween his landscapeart and Ortelius'sStoic philosophymay well throwlight on some of the origins of the thought expressedin thepainter'swork. His view was acceptedby the late HansMielke,anotherpromi-nentBruegelscholar, n his recentcatalogueof Bruegel'sdrawings."There sa problem,however,arisingfromthe fact thatBruegeldied in 1569, while thefirst edition of Ortelius'sTheatrumwas notpublisheduntil thefollowing year.We also have to wonder whetherthe artist knew or was capableof readingCicero and Seneca. As a solution to these difficulties,MUllerHofstede andMielke both suppose that Ortelius traveled to Italy with Bruegel and wouldthen have discussed his Theatrumwith the artist.Although it is possible, ofcourse,that the two did talk of Ortelius'sbook at some time or other, t is notlikely thatthey went to Italy together,because if they had done so it wouldprobablyhave been mentionedsomewherein the contemporarydocumentspertaining o one or the otherof the two men.58 t should be noted,moreover,thatin his book of 1989 on the worldlandscape n sixteenth-centuryFlemishpainting,Walter S. Gibson presentsan illuminatingdiscussion of Bruegel'streatment f natureandlandscapeover the course of his careerwhichplaces itprincipallywithin the developmentof NetherlandishRenaissanceart. In thatcontext,which includes bothvariouscontemporaries nd Patiniras Bruegel'smost importantpredecessorwho was famous for his picturesof saints in pan-oramic vistas of mountains,valleys, towns, fields, andrivers,theevolution of

55Ibid., nos. 13-14, 46-47, 63-74.56 MiillerHofstede,"Zur nterpretationon BruegelsLandschaft,"137-47.57 Mielke,Pieter Bruegel.Die Zeichnungen,25-26.58 Ortelius'stravels are listed by van de Broecke,35-36. Althoughhe traveledwidely andvisited Italytwice in the 1550s, thereis no evidencethat he did so in companywith Bruegel.



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Pieter Bruegel 91his cosmic vision of landscapehasbeenexplainedwithoutreference o Orteliusor Stoic philosophy.59

IV. It is nothis landscapes,however,but his portrayalof peasants hathasbeen thesubjectof thewidestdiscussionandcontroversyamongBruegelschol-ars for the past several decades. In her book of 1994, MargaretA. SullivanmadeBruegel'srelationship o Ortelius hekey to herstudyof his paintingsofpeasants.60She basedher approach o the problemof interpretation n recep-tion orreader-response heoryandhence, in Bruegel'scase, uponanexamina-tion of his audience as an interpretivecommunity.Assuming that he was amemberof the humanistcircle of Ortelius,she believes his artshows theinflu-ence of thisassociationandthatthe surestwayto determine ts meaning,there-fore,is to establishwhat his humanist riendsexpectedto find in it, since as hisintimatesandpeers theywouldbestknowhis outlook andaims.WithOrtelius'sAlbum Amicorumas her chief source, she estimatesthataroundeighty menbelongedto the circle of Bruegel'sassociates andcompriseda significantpartof his audience.Consistingof writers,artists,scholars,educators,physicians,theologians,andpublishers, heyconstitutedwhat she calls an educatedmiddleclass whose values andinterests she attempts o reconstruct.HumanistChris-tians well read n ancient iterature nd witha strongattractiono Stoicismas amoral philosophy, they tended to be moderatesin religion and admirersofErasmus,whom theyemulated n seekinga synthesisof Christianityandclas-sical thoughtto guide the conduct of life. Wordsand images were virtuallyinterchangeableo them,andpaintingandpoetrysisterartsasvehiclesof mean-ing. As lovers of classical satire,they took a condescending,comical view ofpeasants, accordingto Sullivan,regarding hem as crude, foolish, animal-likebeings whose lives were uncontrolledby reason or piety and who indulgedtheirpassionsand wasted theirresources n immoraldrinkinganddancing.Sheholds that the same attitudewas also prevalent n contemporary rt andlitera-ture.

Following thispreliminary haracterizationf the artist'saudienceand tsvalues,Sullivanproceeds oaclose analysisof his twopaintings,PeasantDanceandPeasant WeddingFeast.61 In a fine display of scholarship,she correlates59 WalterS. Gibson, "Mirrorof TheEarth": The WorldLandscape in Sixteenth-CenturyFlemishPainting (Princeton,1989), ch. 5. AlthoughGibson oftenrefersin this book to Orteliusandhis workasacartographer,e saysnothingabout he latter's ntellectual nfluenceonBruegelanddoes not cite MiillerHofstedeormentionStoicism,whichis not listed in hisindex.As he hasdoneelsewhere,he also commentshere(61) on thetendencyof scholars"toexaggerateBruegel'seruditionandprofundity."60 MargaretA. Sullivan,Bruegels Peasants: Art and Audience in The NorthernRenais-sance (Cambridge,1994).61 Reproduced n Grossmann,Bruegel ThePaintings, nos. 129-37.



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92 PerezZagorintheirdetails with numerous exts fromclassical literature, speciallyLatinau-thors,andfromsixteenth-century umanists uch asErasmusandothers,whichexpressa negativeattitude o peasantsandtheirfoolish anddissolutebehaviorwhen not engagedin theirdaily labor.It is such behavior,she maintains, hatBruegel satirizes andexposes in his picturesof peasants.This conclusion de-pends upon the essential claim that the friends and peers who made up theartist's audience and were in the best position to judge the meaning of hispictures,wouldprobablyhave knownthe authorsand textsshequotes,and thatthese texts not only shapedtheirbroaderphilosophybutguidedtheirinterpre-tation of the artists'swork as a critiqueof peasantmoresandconduct.Like manyprevious Bruegelscholars, however,Sullivanaccepts entirelywithoutproofthat his friendshipwith Ortelius indicateshis involvement in acompanyof artists and intellectuals whose values he sharedand who formedhis primaryaudience.In fact, Ortelius himself hadnot met personallyall themen whose entries one finds in his AlbumAmicorum;his sole contact withsome of them, as theirinscriptionsreveal, was through etters.Among thosewhom Sullivan includes as members of Bruegel's audience,most may nevereven have seen his peasantor otherpaintings.This is quitelikely because hisworkswere ownedonly by privatecollectorsand couldbe viewed only in theirhouses. There s no ground, n anycase, forthesupposition hatallthesepeoplewere Bruegel's friends or belonged to his "associative network."Save forOrtelius, he men Sullivan names areonly a hypotheticalaudience; f they didactuallysee Bruegel's paintings,theirpersonalresponseto them is unknown.No evidence exists for assumingthatthe artisthad the erudition o frame hispeasantswith classical exemplain mind,or that their viewers would all haveunderstoodhis picturesof peasants n the sameway or looked atthementirelythrough he spectaclesof classical literature. nstead, hey mighthaveappreci-atedandresponded o thehumanityandgenialhumorof thesepaintings,whichareso noticeablein themandmayhave beenpartof the reasonthatpatronsofBruegellike themerchantsNicholasJonghelinckandJeanNoirotbought hem.Unmentioned n Sullivan's studywas Hans-JoachimRaupp's1986 bookon peasantsatires,anoutstandingworkof art-historicalcholarshipwhich de-votes its longestdiscussionto Bruegelandlikewise sees his peasantpaintingsas satires.62 auppcomes to thisconclusionthroughan extensiveinvestigationof the genre of peasantsatire in German and Netherlandishart in the laterfifteenth and the sixteenth centuries.He arguesstronglythatBruegel's depic-tionsof festivepeasantssuch as thePeasantWeddingFeast andPeasant Dancebelong to this graphicsatiricaltradition,which served a varietyof functionsandappealedto severaldifferentkinds of audiencesandtastes.He also main-

62 Raupp,Bauernsatiren,ch. IV;section 3 of this chapter akesup questionsof interpreta-tion in Bruegel'srepresentation f festive peasants.



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Pieter Bruegel 93tains that in understandinghe meaningof these works that fit into a genre,questions ike Bruegel'spersonalattitude owardpeasantsorhis direct knowl-edge of peasant ife are irrelevantor of secondary nterest.63Disagreeing with the opinion that Bruegel presentsa satirical,negativepictureof peasant ife andrecreations,a numberof scholarshave advancedanopposingview. SvetlanaAlpershas perceivedBruegel'speasantscenes as be-nign, sympathetic, and humorous images which the artist depicted in acelebratoryspiritof festive comedy.64MargaretD. Carroll nsists thata posi-tive conceptionof peasants and their festivities was a featureof the art andliteratureof Bruegel'stime,quotingsuchexamples as Erasmus'spraiseof therustic simplicity and festive conviviality of the natives of Brabant.She con-tends thatBruegel's printsof apeasant air orholidaydo notnot condemn suchoccasions and that his Peasant Dance in Viennais a favorablerepresentationof a village festival.65 Reviewing the entire debatein 1991, WalterS. Gibsonemphasizesthe existence of an alternative radition n early modernEuropeand the Netherlands hat looked at peasantsfavorablyas an estateworthyofesteem because of their contribution o society. He sees the representation fpeasants n Bruegel'spaintingsas a mixture of sympathyand toleranthumor,the expressionby a greatrealistof the age-old dreamof rusticfelicity andthecountryas a place of abundanceandrefuge from the city where the goddessAstraeastill dwells.66The latest discussion of this subject s by EthanMatt Kavaler n his impor-tant book on Bruegel, which proffersan interpretation f Peasant WeddingFeast thatdiffers not only from Sullivan's andRaupp'sbut from the view ofotherpreviousscholars.Inhis firstchapterhe devotes some pages to Orteliusand the circleof Antwerphumanistsas an essential contextalthoughhe makesno direct connection between the latterandBruegel'swork. In his judgment,Peasant WeddingFeast shows an integratedcommunityof different estatescomprising both peasants and their social superiors(the picture includes aFranciscanmonkand a gentlemanor squireseated at the banquettable at the

63 See Raupp'ssummary ist of propositionson the character f thesepaintingsby Bruegel,Bauernsatiren,298-99, and his conclusions on the function of the "festive peasant" heme inNetherlandishart,316-21. As regards he latterhe pointsout that artscholars have been almostexclusively concernedwith the ideological functionof thesepictures,while ignoringtheirotherfunctionsin catering o differentaudiencesand as a commodityin the artmarket.64 SvetlanaAlpers, "Bruegel'sFestive Peasants,"Simiolus, 6 (1972-73), 163-76. Alpers'sinterpretationwas challengedby Hessel Miedema,"Realism andThe Comic Mode:The Peas-ant,"Simiolus,9 (1977), 205-19, who contendedthatBruegel's images of peasantrevelryweredidacticworksreflectinga criticalanddisparagingview of theirsubjectsuchas was commoninsixteenth-century orthernart.65 MargaretD. Carroll,"PeasantFestivity and PoliticalIdentity n The SixteenthCentury,"ArtHistory, 10 (1987), 287-314.66 Gibson,"BruegelandThe Peasants:A Problemof Interpretation,"7-23, 43.



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94 Perez Zagorinright), who are gatheredharmoniouslytogetherin a moment of ideal socialrelationships.The weddingfeast thusprovidesan occasionto affirmthe iden-tity of the community,and the picture'sessential subjectsare animation,en-counter,and sharedexperience.Kavalersees Bruegelas respectfulof the indi-vidualityof thepeasantvillagers,whomherefrains romcaricaturing ndtreatsas personswith their own emotional lives rather hanas types. The basic hu-manitywith which he conceives them transcends heirrusticmanners,whilethe paintingas a whole reflects an embracingvision of communitythat ac-knowledges individualityand subsumes class distinctionswithin the idea ofsociety whose membersbelong to a largerwhole.67 Kavaler'sreadingof thispicture s relatedto his moredebatableconceptionof Bruegel'ssocial orienta-tion as conservative, raditionalist, ndnostalgicallyattached o thepastandtoan older social orderwhich the forces of commercialcapitalismandreligiousandpoliticalrevolution were eroding.Bruegelwas aware,he believes, of theemergenceof new values of practicality, ocial mobility,pursuitof profit,andindividual nterest,which were replacingan ethos concernedfor stabilityandthecommongood. His workaccordingly"seems to advocateareturn o a hier-archical deal, sound and secure,"but also acknowledges "thepassingof thiscomfortingtraditionand the coming of a new order."68Kavaler's nterpretationf Bruegel'svision of hispeasantsubjects s muchmoreplausiblethan that of the historianswho explainits intentionas criticaland satiric.A partof the artist'sgreatnesslay in the inventiveness,wit, andoriginalitywithwhich he was able to utilize and transforma familiargenretocreatesomethingstrikinglynew and different.His portrayal f festivepeasantsis far superior n its compositional structureand masterlyobservationto thepicturesof the same subjectby PieterAertsen,JoachimBeuckelaer,PietervanderBorcht,andothercontemporary rtists eproduced nddiscussedby Kavaler,Raupp,Gibson,and otherscholars.69Inworkslike Peasant WeddingFeast andPeasantDance, alive withenergyandunmatchedn theirrealism,Bruegel ooksathis subjectwith anobjectivity hatconveysthecrudity, owdiness,andcomicside of thepeasants n theireating,drinking,anddancing.Yet he endows themat the same time with a fully realizedindividualityof personandphysical ac-tivity whichblendswiththeircollective identityas a social class, and he mani-fests towardthem a sympathetichumanityandgood nature n presenting hemas country people engaged in their simple pleasures.The same qualitiesareequallyvisible in the five magnificentworksthatconstitutethe survivingpartof the series of The Months or Seasonscommissioned for his residenceby the

67 Kavaler,Parables of Orderand Enterprise,26-27 and ch. 5, esp. 150-51, 183, and seealso the remarkon 258 thatBruegel"rarely atirizedcommonfolk...."68Ibid., 255.69Kavaler,Parables of OrderandEnterprise,ch. 5; Raupp,Bauernsatiren, h. IV;Gibson,"BruegelandThe Peasants:A Problemof Interpretation."



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Pieter Bruegel 95merchantNicholas Jonghelinck, n which natureandlandscapepredominate.In this group of paintings, The Hunters in The Snow, The Gloomy Day,Haymaking,TheHarvest,and The Returnof TheHerd,natureappears n itsvaried seasonal garb with its differentatmospheresand weathers,while theacutelyandeloquentlycharacterizedigureswho areoccupiedin theirdiverseactivities and labors as hunters,tree pruners,cultivators of the fields, cattledrovers,andharvesters,all seem in harmonywith the naturalorder that sus-tainsthem.70

Bruegel'soeuvre is far too rich andwide rangingfor it to be encompassedin any single formulaorphilosophicaldescription. tcouldbe thathis contem-porarieshad littleproblem n understandingmost of his creations,andhe wasprobablymuch more indebtedfor his themesandsubjectsto the artistictradi-tions of the Netherlandsandto Netherlandish olklore, religion, andpopularculture han o thewritingsorideas of philosophersorclassicalauthors.Gibsonhas shown in this connection how close the relationship s between a numberof his allegoricalworks and the subjectsand symbolismin the performancesput on by the rederijkersor chambersof rhetoricthatflourishedin Antwerpand othertowns as a manifestationof thepopularcultureof the Netherlandsnthe sixteenthcentury.71ertainof his greatestworks areclearlysatirical, ronic,andpessimisticin theirview of mankind.NetherlandishProverbs, orinstance,illustrates he manykindsof foolish, absurd,and sinful behavior thatarepartof the humanscene. Christon the Road to Calvary, n which we must search ofind the small figureof Christ n the centercollapsingunderthe weight of thecross,presentsa vast spectacleof humancruelty,callousness,andindifferencearound he figures of the grieving Maryandher three attendants n the fore-ground.It also most pointedlyandbitterlysatirizesreligioushypocrisyin itsportraitdetailof thesoldiersseizingandforcingtheunwillingSimon of Cyreneto helpJesuscarry hecross, while he triesto pull awayaidedby his wife, whowears a rosarywith a crucifixat her waist. The Triumph f Death contains afearsome vision of a sinfulhumanityattackedandoverwhelmedby armies ofskeletons andcadavers n a fiery landscapeof apocalypticdevastation ackingany sign of redemption.72Otherworks seem so ambiguousorenigmaticthat t is perhaps mpossibleto penetrate heirmeaningandthe artists's ntention.TheFall of Icarus can beinterpreted ither as a commentaryon the disastrousconsequencesof over-weening personalambitionwhich ensue when a manaspiresto rise above hisstation,oron thecompleteobliviousnessand indifferenceof theploughman n70 These paintingsarereproducedn Grossmann,Bruegel ThePaintings,nos. 79-109.71 Gibson,Bruegel,21-22, 62, 172-73, and"ArtistsandRederijkersn TheAge of Bruegel,"ArtBulletin,63 (1981), 426-46.72 These threepaintingsarereproducedn Grossmann,Bruegel ThePaintings, nos. 13-14,63-74, 20-29.



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96 PerezZagorinthepicture o Icarus'sdeath.73 hedrawingof Justicemade for the set of printsof The Seven Virtuesshows, along with its clerks,judges, lawyers, and theallegorical figureof lustitia, so many gallows andsights of flogging, hanging,burning,and torture hat it mighthave been intendedas a satirerather han apraiseofjustice.74Magpieon TheGallows,a landscapepainting n which threepeasantshavejoined handsin a dance beneatha gallows on whicha magpieisperchedandwith a cross in thebackground, ertainlyseems to hint at a mean-ing, but it is one thatmaybe too obscure to fathom.75Withso littleknowledgeof Bruegelatourdisposal,we mayconclude thatwe are neverlikely to understandhis mindfully orbe certainof the meaningsof a numberof his works.My own view is that he was in large parta moralistandironist witha deepvein of humanityand humorwho perceivedthegrotes-querieandcomedyin theendless spectacleof life, a penetrating bserverwhohad a poor opinionandsmallexpectationsof mankindbut founda compensa-tion for thispessimisticvision in his contemplationof themajestic, mpersonalorderof nature.Art scholarsand historiansof ideas, thenorthernRenaissance,andrelated ields will of course continueto studyhis creations,butit shouldbekept in view thatwhat we don't know of him is perhapsnot very importantwhen we consider the universalappealof his artand its incomparable nven-tiveness andtransfiguringealism,whichhaveprovideduswithgreatanduniqueimages of his world andtime.

Charlottesville,Virginia.

73 The two versions of thispaintingarereproducedn ibid.,nos. 3-3a; fordiscussionsof itsmeaning,see WalterS. Gibson,Bruegel,40, and "Mirror f TheEarth,"60; Stridbeck,235-42;BeatWyss,LandschaftmitIkarussturz.Ein Vexierbild er humanistischenPessimismus(Frank-furt,1990);Kavaler,Parables of OrderandEnterprise,ch. 2. W. H.Audenin his poem,"Mus6edes Beaux-Arts," ook it as Bruegel's illustrationof people's capacityfor disregardandturningaway in the presenceof humansufferingandcalamity.74 This drawing s reproducedn CatalogueNew York 001, no. 72.75Reproducedn Grossmann,BruegelThePaintings,nos. 153-54;see Kavaler'sdiscussionof thispainting,Parables of OrderandEnterprise,217-33 andpassim.