Book Description
Painting Life uniquely conveys the relevance of the paintingsof the old Flemish master Pieter Bruegel, The Elder (1520/5-1590) formodern audiences. Based on extensive research and first-hand observationRobert L. Bonn guides the reader through the scenes depicted in theseremarkable works of art, including the "something more" so often imbeddedin them--the social context in which they were painted, and how they relateto our lives today. Bonn clearly explains why Bruegel's paintingsbrilliantly capture the universal conditions of conflict, work, play,folly, and chaos, as well as innumerable pieces of biblical and folkwisdom. His paintings can be found in collections all over the world,including Madrid, Vienna, Brussels, Rome, and Prague, to name a few. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Art is art
The book has the history of a Flemish Artistwho shows insights into 16th century society but our lives now. This book is about travels the artist made all over Europe in a language that was easy to comprehend. I read it cover to cover. It is perfect for people who have an acquired taste for art.

an awful book
I'll start with the good things about the book: the color plates of Bruegel's major works, the bibliography, and the information on where each of the paintings is.The book is also quite readable, and I finished it, although upon doing so I immediately sold it to a used bookstore, as I would have felt embarrassed to have it in my house.The book's main problem is that it has nothing to say and describes each of the paintings with utterly vacuous gibberish. One painting reveals the "moral complexity that is at the heart of our civilization" and "points us toward the future much as it captures the essence of our past."Another "shows an extraordinary grasp of the soul of a culture, indeed the essence of our social life."The book appears not to have been professionally edited, and I would have guessed that it was self-published, except that I saw it for sale in Borders.It puts numerous words in unnecessary quotation marks, which is a sure sign of amateurishness.It starts quotations with ellipses, which is never appropriate, and, at one point, if I recall, it has, in the middle of a quotation, ". . . [and] . . . ," which makes no sense.You will learn nothing about Bruegel from this book, other than what his major paintings look like and where they are.

A seminal excursion into the timeless testimony of classical art.
Written by City University of New York professor Robert L. Bonn, Painting Life: The Art of Pieter Bruegel, The Elder is an extraordinary tour through the visual and social landscapes in thirty-six major paintings by Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel, The Elder (1520/25-1569). Plates of the paintings themselves illustrate Painting Life in glorious full color, while chapters discuss Bruegel's genius in capturing the qualities of human life from work to play, foolishness, and conflict; expressions of Bruegel's anthropology and social philosophy in his creations; and stories of the influential cities where Bruegel's paintings hang today: Madrid, Vienna, Antwerp and Brussels, Rome and Naples, San Diego, Prague, and New York City. A seminal excursion into the timeless testimony of classical art. ... Read more

Book Description
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525/30-1569) was a remarkable draftsmanand designer of prints as well as a great painter.His independent drawings and designsfor engravings and etchings, which were carried out by the leading printmakers of hisday, have fascinated scholars and the general public alike since they were created. Theyhave recently been the subject of research that has given rise to a reevaluation of theparameters of Bruegel's oeuvre.The new scholarship has been brought to bear on thetexts in the present volume. An international group of experts presents essays on theartist's life, his contributions as a draftsman and as a printmaker, his iconography andsocial and political context, and the posthumous survival of his art. The authors alsoilluminate Bruegel's genius in discussions of individual prints and drawings. Each ofthese works is illustrated and many comparative illustrations are also included. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A special feature
... A special feature of this book is that many of the drawings and engravings are on facing pages, or else on the same page so that they may be compared. As the engravings were done by others, the chance to make comparisons is delightful. The drawings have a warm light brownish tint from both the ink and paper and the engravings are black and white. There are days and hours of visual interest here.
... The text is informative; both scholarly and readable. The main catalogue has a huge 16 page bibliography (3 columns per page) and an index. The first 84 pages contain 5 chapters, by different authors on aspects of his work. Detailed information on provenances, literature and sizes are also provided. there are 274 illustrations.
... Also quality paper has been used in the book; highly recommended for the 'Pieter Bruegel the elder' lover.

Un artiste pour toutes les saisons, surtout l'hiver
L'artiste est un grand maitre lorsque ses oeuvres sont impactants, d'un gout eternel. En fait, le Paysage d'hiver de Pieter Bruegel pere se trouve entre les oeuvres d'art les plus copies et imites du monde. La plupart des quarantaines de ses peintures survivantes datent de la derniere decade de sa vie. Il est le peintre incomparable de la comedie humaine, dans l'Ane a l'ecole; des paysages flamands au style italien, dans Paysage emboise avec une vue lointaine; des paysans, dans Kermis du St George; et des proverbes, dans Des grands poissons mangent des petits poissons. Il honore les manuscrits enlumines et les miniatures, dans la Tour de Babel. Ses dessins destines aux gravures sont des chefs-d'oeuvres de details, grains, nuances et textures.

A WORK TO BE SAVORED AND TREASURED
Arguably the greatest Netherlands painter and draftsman of the 16th century, Pieter Bruegel was a well traveled artist.Documentation shows that between 1515 and 1553 he made an enviable journey through France and then to Italy.While in Rome he worked with a miniaturist, and was inspired by the Alps that he saw during his return to Antwerp.

A quiet man he was, nonetheless, given to pranks of a slightly frightening nature, very often surprising his students.What comes as a surprise to many todayis the recent scholarship which sheds light on not only his life but his work as a draftsman and printmaker, extending to the social and political ramifications of his creations.

This magnificent volume is the catalogue for an important exhibit of more than 140 Bruegel prints and drawings.Included are scholarly essays as well as comparative illustrations.It is a valuable contribution to the annals of art history.For laymen it is a work to be savored and treasured.

- Gail Cooke

Proof of art
Proof of art is in strong impact on later generations and timeless appeal: both describe this first major exhibition of PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER: PRINTS AND DRAWINGS. His art had been the source of many copies, of which the most often copied was "Winter landscape with skaters," and late 16th- and early 17th-century imitative works, such as dotted atmosphere and forms around grainy ground and trees by Master of the Mountain Landscapes and Jacob Savery, thick forest wildernesses by Gillis van Coninxloo, and winter skating by Hans Bol. We mainly know him through his art and that of sons Jan and Pieter the Younger: most of his 40+ surviving paintings are from his last seven years, such as "Fall of the rebel angels," "Sermon of St John the Baptist," and "Wedding dance"; and terror against heretics, Protestants, and subversives by the Duke of Alba in Brussels wore away his final two years, finding expression in "Blind leading the blind" and "Magpie on the gallows" bitterness and sorrow and in many, ominous "Summer" knives. We think of him immortalizing peasants with "Kermis at Hoboken" and "Kermis of St George," proverbs with "Big fish eat little fish," and winter scenes with "Ice skating before the gate of St George" and "Winter landscape with bird trap": he has been admired for applying an Apelles-type imagination to Hieronymus Bosch-type allegories, with the reptile lying down in "Luxuria" and upside-down frog in "Superbia," and to Eupompas-type nature. He was one of the first Northerners to take on post-Leonardo da Vinci Italian landscape style, coming up with distinctly Flemish scenes, stocky peasants and wide open naturalism, with Sistine Chapel sacrifice of Noah-type hugely solid countryfolk in "Beekeepers," Federico Barocci-type line-flowing tree trunks and white stippled foliage in "Wooded landscape with a distant view," and Cornelis Massys-type commonplace woodland scene and Titan-type balanced composition, broad-reaching lines and cotton-wool foliage in "Wooded landscape with mills." He kept manuscript illumination and miniature painting traditions going in "Tower of Babel" with Giulio Clovio-type teeming, tiny figures. He touched on religion, but by uncommon subject with the Christ-told "Parable of the good shepherd" and "Parable of the wise and foolish virgins" from the New Testament and with "Suicide of Saul" from the Old Testament; and by unusual presentation with the contemporary, stagelike "Death of the virgin." He dipped into comic genre without ending up second-rate with the carefully cross-hatched and solidly outlined "Ass at school." The lasting, widespread popularity of his art was partly due to his designs for prints, whose final look he controlled with Maarten van Heemskerck-type highly specific detail and with printmaker-friendly shading and textures: "Landscape with bears" was the first of 32 drawings directly modeled for prints; and "Rabbit hunt was the only print that he created, with distinctly outlined, light-filled foliage and imposing mountains broadly hatched and finely speckled and with its dark theme of soldiers distressing peasants the same as his "Massacre of the innocents" painting and "Milites requiescentes" print. So Nadine M Orenstein has edited a clearly organized, compellingly written, and wonderfully illustrated book which pools excellent examples of art, along with PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER books by Walter S Gibson, Rose-Marie Hagen et al, and Wolfgang Stechow and PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER AT THE KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM IN VIENNA by Pieter Bruegel. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Renaissance Quarterly, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2003. The length of the article is 1405 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints. .(Book Review)
Author: Jeffrey Chipps Smith
Publication: Renaissance Quarterly (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2003
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 56Issue: 2Page: 518(4)

Article Type: Book Review

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Product Description
Tipped-in color plates. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Art Bulletin, published by Thomson Gale on September 1, 2006. The length of the article is 5460 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Netherlandish Proverbs and the Practice of Rhetoric.(essay)(Critical essay)
Author: Ethan Matt Kavaler
Publication: The Art Bulletin (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 88Issue: 3Page: 597(5)

Article Type: Critical essay

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Book Description
This digital document is an article from Renaissance Quarterly, published by Renaissance Society of America on September 22, 1996. The length of the article is 1171 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Two studies.
Author: Nina Eugenia Serebrennikov
Publication: Renaissance Quarterly (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 1996
Publisher: Renaissance Society of America
Volume: v49Issue: n3Page: p678(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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