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Bruegel: The Master
Nearly 450 years after his death, Pieter Bruegel the Elder is widely regarded as the 16th century’s greatest Netherlandish painter. This book is the tie-in catalog for a once-in-a-generation exhibition of Bruegel’s work at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Bruegel’s work is renowned for its stunning compositions, often moralizing and always teeming with characters, inviting the viewer to reflect on the multi-layered complexity of each image. Today, just over forty of his original paintings remain in museums and private collections, many of which have never been loaned out for exhibition purposes. This book presents a full survey of Bruegel’s entire oeuvre and will prove to be an indispensable resource for Bruegel fans and scholars alike.
Bruegel’s work is renowned for its stunning compositions, often moralizing and always teeming with characters, inviting the viewer to reflect on the multi-layered complexity of each image. Today, just over forty of his original paintings remain in museums and private collections, many of which have never been loaned out for exhibition purposes. This book presents a full survey of Bruegel’s entire oeuvre and will prove to be an indispensable resource for Bruegel fans and scholars alike.
- GenresArtNonfictionHistory
304 pages, Hardcover
Published October 11, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 5, 2020
Perfection. Not a smaller, poorer work is left out; the pages are tall and the paper not overly glossy to the extent of blindness for the reader; and there's a lot of text with as much information about Bruegel there is and then some.
Bruegel is one of those artists where I could agree he painted many masterpieces, but also produced a good number of sleep-inducing works. Don't worry, I've already smacked myself for thinking this, but I'm lucky enough to see his work in this large book opposed to browsing them on the computer. It's not only how, "Bruegel: the Master", connects his work to the greats before - chiefly, Bosch - it's also the act of taking in so much at once - the tones, the large scenes of horror or the less dramatic, the dreamy brushwork, impressive rendering of precise details down to the smallest bits of information in frame, and those strange-hued, sort-of desaturated, and yet still luminous colours.
What I hope most is that this book turns the reader into a fan, or a larger one, when that reader was sure it couldn't happen, not with Bruegel.
Bruegel is one of those artists where I could agree he painted many masterpieces, but also produced a good number of sleep-inducing works. Don't worry, I've already smacked myself for thinking this, but I'm lucky enough to see his work in this large book opposed to browsing them on the computer. It's not only how, "Bruegel: the Master", connects his work to the greats before - chiefly, Bosch - it's also the act of taking in so much at once - the tones, the large scenes of horror or the less dramatic, the dreamy brushwork, impressive rendering of precise details down to the smallest bits of information in frame, and those strange-hued, sort-of desaturated, and yet still luminous colours.
What I hope most is that this book turns the reader into a fan, or a larger one, when that reader was sure it couldn't happen, not with Bruegel.
January 14, 2026
The paintings? Awesome. The writing? Uh, yeah, it’s, oh did I mention how great the paintings are? And does anyone even buy an art book for the words?
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews