The life and work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder | Hacker News Reader

The life and work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder

laphamsquarterly.org

50 pointsbenbreen23 comments

Meta: it's kind of eerie to read an article like this that is obviously written by an 'outsider'. Although non of what's written is factually wrong (as far as I can tell, I'm no historian), the specific way certain nuances are skipped over gives it an almost 'uncanny valley' feeling. Part of it is that it's written in English and certain nuances just don't exist (like his mentioning 'Lord of the Netherlands' vs 'de Nederlanden/Nederland', his strange 'Aux quatre vents' translation - yes I know it's correct literally, but it just feels so off compared to the idiomatic meaning), others skip over so much historical and current geo-political context that it seems tone-deaf to sensitivities ('the Dutch Republic (loosely modern Holland)'). I understand that for an article on an historical painter, you cannot go into details like this, what I'm saying is the choice of what the writer considered important and the way he skips over nuance makes it feel very alien.

I guess this phenomenon is well-known by people who are from cultures that are usually written about by outsiders :) but I don't encounter it often and this specific article just evoked this really weird feeling in me. So many instances where I internally reacted with 'WFT is this guy saying' yet no actual factual errors that I can find.

maybe it's not written by a 'person' as this seems to be a common experience when dealing with ML generated texts.

Haha I didn't want to go into accusations like that, since it does list an author at the bottom and this is apparently an excerpt from a book, but still.

It's not clear to me what the substance of your criticism is. What is the idiomatic meaning of "to the four winds" that's missed? What's wrong with "This division would eventually result in the establishment of the Dutch Republic (loosely modern Holland) and the Spanish Netherlands (loosely modern Belgium and Luxembourg)."?

You mean 'substance' as in 'objective fact'? Well there isn't, that was the whole point of the comment. Everything as far as I can find is factually correct, and yet how it's all woven together makes the narrative feel robotic and off tune. Like, another commenter brought up that it may have been ML generated, which I don't think it is; but it does give me the same feeling as, say, 95 to 99th percentile ML images - it makes you do a second take for no (prima facie) apparent reason.

Then again, maybe I'm just a nitpicking weirdo. Although I've gotten enough upvotes by now that it seems that others have the same feeling. Maybe someone else can explain the reason for their subjective emotions upon reading this better.

Substance as in "you say these things are 'off', can you explain why you consider them 'off'"?

Based on the sibling thread about the geographic extent of the modern Netherlands vs. the post-revolt Dutch Republic, yes, to me it seems like you're nitpcking. The author is trying to give a rough reference point to readers not familiar with the details of the history or geography. Trying to enumerate the changes in borders would be tedious, beside the point, and go over the head of most readers (who wouldn't recognize the names of the relevant towns/regions/etc.)

Edit: Though I'm defending the author on this point, I would agree that this isn't a great piece of writing. It's a "potted biography" that doesn't seem to have much of an overall point.

like his mentioning 'Lord of the Netherlands' vs 'de Nederlanden/Nederland

But Lord of the Netherlands was exactly the title used by Charles V in those days ("Landsheer van de Nederlanden"), and "de Nederlanden" was the customary name to refer to the region. What is it exactly that feels off to you?

And the description of the Dutch Republic as "loosely modern Holland" seems placed to contrast it with the Flanders and Luxembourg areas -- it doesn't feel tone-deaf to me, other than that "Holland" itself in an antiquated term, but I'd think it permissible given that it's used in the context of the Dutch Golden Age (which is where that name gained prominence).

I guess my point on that was 'Landsheer van de Nederlanden' should today not be summarily translated as 'Lord of the Netherlands' since 'the Netherlands' has a current meaning, as opposed to in Dutch, where 'de Nederlanden' and 'Nederland' are immediately and obviously referring to political entities at different points in time, and with somewhat overlapping but still significantly different areas.

Then again, I do know that Emperor Charles is referred to as 'Lord of the Netherlands' in English language history books, and I wouldn't easily know how to do it differently, but somehow there it's always more... padded in context?

Likewise (although it may be the same issue underneath...), equating the area of the Dutch Republic with modern-day Netherlands (which I assume he's referring to but didn't want to use that because of confusion with the previous point?) is... rather simplistic. I mean, I guess it's something someone who's never left the Randstand wouldn't think twice about, but that doesn't make it true.

But as I said, it's not like there are any factual errors I could find, and in any other writing I would have easily understood how difficult it is to convey all that nuance in a piece like this where, frankly, that nuance doesn't even matter. It's just that the combination of subtexts made the whole thing feel weird. To me. Maybe it didn't to you.

I would agree with you. In the first sentence the writer puts Breda in southern Holland in stead of in Brabant. That is just wrong to somebody from Brabant.

This is something that I think most people recognize when they see journalism about a subject they know much about. Journalism often seems really limited and dumbed down when you know a subject and the journalistic piece is short. But then when you don't know a subject, it seems really good and valuable and you learn a lot (ignoring that it must seem dumbed down to somebody else).

Nice to see Bruegel on HN. Google's "Arts and Culture" project has some splendid high-resolution images[1] of some of Bruegel's works.

E.g. See this[2] detailed explanation of one of his classics, "Harvesters". And here are a couple of other fun paintings, "Hunters in the Snow"[3] and "Dutch Proverbs"[4] — this one has about 126 literal illustrations of Dutch-language proverbs; you can read the list of proverbs here[5].

[1] https://artsandculture.google.com/story/VQVR2ypjgSxiIQ?hl=en

[2] "Harvesters" -- https://artsandculture.google.com/story/kQUxmAo9GNvEJA?hl=en

[3] "Hunters in the snow" -- https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/hunters-in-the-snow-...

[4] "The Dutch Proverbs" https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-dutch-proverbs-p...

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandish_Proverbs#Proverb...

Visit https://insidebruegel.net to view high-resolution images of all the paintings by Bruegel in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Macrophotography, infrared macrophotography, infrared reflectography and X-radiography images are available.

The most comprehensive exhibition of his work to date, was held by the museum in 2018-2019. The exhibition catalogue is magnificent : https://hannibalbooks.be/bruegel-the-hand-of-the-master-the-...

Thanks for the excellent references! (I was recently planning to be in Vienna to check out some of these works at the Kunsthistorisches.)

Ah the 2018-2019 exhibition you're referring to was done for his 450th anniversary. I recall going on a "Bruegel binge" and visited some 5 exhibitions in 2019 winter in Brussels and Antwerp. It was outstanding. One of the memorable exhibitions was an immersive experience in Brussels: four entire rooms were projected, from floor to ceiling, with Bruegel's works, slowly zooming in while beautiful piano music played.

The KHM is a world-class museum that is nowhere near as famous internationally as it should be, imo.

Not a great article but it doesn’t matter much. Just explore the works of both the Elder and the Younger. They’re maybe the best illustrations of life in those times we will ever see. In person the paintings are exquisitely small. If you view the Louvre’s many examples you might be surprised, because they’re hung willy-nilly on walls crowded with other masterpieces. Museums in the USA generally have far fewer works of such quality, so they get treated much more respectfully: no paintings nearby, somewhat better plaques, deliberate lighting, etc.

Bruegel was perhaps the first realist. By which I mean he painted people in the costume of the day and not in classical robes. I explain realism to my students as one of the primary 'atom bombs' of visual art: an idea that permenently disrupted visual language. The realism effect can be seen in the shaker cam effect of movies like clover field and the Blair witch project. I see no problem at all with genealogically relating these movies with Bruegels paintings.

I see comments about the quality of the writing in the article. For a more higher-quality treatment of Bruegel, Manfred Sellink's books[1] are not to be missed. Sellink is the leading Bruegel scholar.

[1] https://books.google.be/books/about/Bruegel_in_Detail.html?i...

Interesting to see here how different people discover Bruegel... I did so through Michael Frayn's entertaining "Headlong", a caper about an academic unsuited to subterfuge who thinks he's discovered a masterpiece. (Some of the Goodreads reviews are less favourable on the slabs of research which the author provides - I found it interesting but admittedly have forgotten much of it since reading the novel many years ago...)

My connection with Brugel the Elder comes from it being referenced in "Solaris," a Soviet sci-fi film by Andrei Tarkovsky. In this film, Tarkovsky displays the artwork in seminal moments.

Artwork: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/hunters-in-the-snow-...

I love Pieter Breugel's work. Does anyone know where I can buy reproductions of his work online and have them shipped to me?

I don't know about the full-size reproductions, but I own a (hardcover) copy of "Bruegel in Detail" book[1], which zooms into specific details of many paintings and provides great explanations.

I also own an excellent large hard-cover edition of "Bruegel in Black and White"[2]. I don't see it in English, only in Dutch, I'm afraid. But it has many of Bruegel's black-and-white prints (an overlooked gem!) in life-sized reproductions. It was based on an exhibition[3] from the past at KBR museum in Brussels (where the Bruegel's black-and-white works are in store; they're all digitized here[4]).

[1] https://ludion.be/en/books/detail/bruegel-in-detail

[2] https://hannibalbooks.be/en/bruegel-in-zwart-en-wit

[3] https://www.kbr.be/en/the-world-of-bruegel-in-black-and-whit...

[4] https://belgica.kbr.be/BELGICA/SearchMinify/4UlmraV5bUm1kwPM...

Thanks.

How do you write this and only have 4 pictures, 3 from the subject of the article?

This is ILLITERATE narrative. This is weak science and trash journalism. Painters of the time were literal, which make this hit piece an illiterate writing of history. This is news from the academic synod, and not without purpose to deceive.

What evidence do we have that Bruegel was not painting reality as seen? Based on what report and observation does this journalist assume the details they give to you? Soon they will tell you the white whale from Moby Dick was not real, but a phantasy, no such creatures ever existed. This essay is deliberately avoiding Breugel's religious works and feeding you pasteurized scholastic to flavor his psychological profile for you to phancy. Yet they will tell you his actual pastorals "are a study of man in nature", in other words real historical document.

They are telling you fairy tales while you look at real pictures, and then present to you, as phact, a CGI of Earth in space and CGI of a hairy ball of fire and CGI of a planet with rings around it. Bruegel's paintings are more real than quantum physical representations, but you believe time travel and aliens are more real than history as displayed in psychical images.

This tactic is modern and used religiously, it is no different than character deformation. If you care more about the man than the work, you can write off the result any which way. Now you are set loose to believe a person would only say or do as such because they are "crazy" or have a phony syndrome; in reality they give you the syndrome.

The proof of this is simple. If you see beauty, nobody can tell that what you feel is actually the very image and form of the opposite. The thing itself resonates with you, and thus the beauty must be in you also, as if you are the very instrument which measures beauty. If I tell you the character of the person, I am attempting to resonate those personal traits inside yourself, and thus if I say the character was psycho, and achieve that trait in you, your perception of the genuine article becomes psychotic, and you no evidence the person in question was any which way.

Beauty does not allow for that, for nobody can tell you otherwise. Not all things are beautiful, but that does not make them unreal. Your sense of beauty is the barometer of sanity, but importantly it is the basis of true relational science, for beauty tells us that we should not be deceived by unreal observations which can only be given to us; your observation is the only real one you can trust.

Now, you might ask "But then should we not question the observations of Bruegel?" Yes, that is precisely it, base your judgement on original observations and correlate those with as many findings as you can, rather than lazily accepting reformed observations by psychotic hackwits attempting to dictate what is real and not.

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