Day 40 - Pieter Bruegel The Elder

I especially like to see Pieter Bruegel The Elder's painting this week. Born c. 1528 he lived to be about 41 and died in 1569.  He was the greatest painter of the mid-16th century in the Netherlands.

He loved to show the relationship between people and nature and though he spent time studying in Italy, traveling as far south as Sicily, he choose not to use the classical elements he found there in his paintings.

The most beautiful example of his work is an oil on wood piece called Hunters in the Snow done in 1556.  It seems to be mainly a beautiful landscape of an expansive view of a village, frozen lake and craggy mountains in the background.  Three dark, stark trees in the left hand foreground capture the viewers attention from look into the beautiful panorama and bring into focus three dark figures of hunters returning from the hunt with pack of dogs.  There are also some details of women lighting a fire to stay warm.  The figures are well defined, but not highlighted as the focus; all the figures are silhouetted, dark against the light, almost a negative space within the spectacular view.  It is stunning to look at and extremely well executed. This painting is considered to be an occidental counterpart to the masterworks of Chinese landscape.

Pieter Bruegel The Elder, Hunters in the Snow, 1556. Oil on wood.

References:

1. Gardner's Art Through the Ages, A Global History, 13th ed., by Fred S. Kleiner - Chapter 23
2. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pieter_Bruegel_d._%C3%84._106.jpg