Artist: Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526/1530–1569)
Title: “The Peasant and the Nest Robber”
Date: 1568
Medium: oil on oak wood
Dimensions: 59.3 × 68.3 cm (23.3 × 26.8 in)
Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum
What I love about this painting
Pieter Brugel the Elder was a man with a sharp eye for the humorous and the ability to wield allegory and symbolism like a knife. He cuts to the heart of things, pointing out the hubris and vanities of people from all walks of life.
Pieter Brugel the Elder was earthy and honest in his depictions of village life in his time. He painted what he saw and celebrated the ups and downs of the human condition. Today, his art is an important source of evidence about the social mores and values governing 16th-century life.
This painting details his favorite subject of human frailty, but he’s taken a different approach, narrowing his usual cast of thousands to just two.
In this case, he is pointing out that people are opportunists. We either have the knowledge and nerve to take what we need or the knowledge and sly desire to point out the failings of others.
Both men in this scene are taking the opportunity to advance themselves. One gains eggs and a good meal, and the other gains a sense of moral superiority.
Neither man feels guilty.
About this painting, via Wikipedia:
This unusual subject apparently illustrates a Netherlandish proverb:
Dije den nest Weet dijen weeten, dijen Roft dij heeten
He who knows where the nest is, has the knowledge, he who robs, has the nest.The painting presents a moralising contrast between the active, wicked individual and the passive man who is virtuous in spite of adversity (a similar theme appears in his drawing The Beekeepers)] And lastly it could be suggested that the pointing man is making judgement on the robber whilst not aware that he is nearly stepping into the water in front of him.
It has been suggested that, with his knowledge of Italian art, Bruegel intended the peasant’s gesture as a profane parody of the gesture of Leonardo‘s St John. [1]
About the Artist, via Wikipedia:
Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder c. 1525–1530 – 9 September 1569) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker from Brabant, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genre painting); he was a pioneer in making both types of subject the focus in large paintings.
He was a formative influence on Dutch Golden Age painting and later painting in general in his innovative choices of subject matter, as one of the first generation of artists to grow up when religious subjects had ceased to be the natural subject matter of painting. He also painted no portraits, the other mainstay of Netherlandish art. After his training and travels to Italy, he returned in 1555 to settle in Antwerp, where he worked mainly as a prolific designer of prints for the leading publisher of the day. Only towards the end of the decade did he switch to make painting his main medium, and all his famous paintings come from the following period of little more than a decade before his early death, when he was probably in his early forties, and at the height of his powers.
Around 1563, Bruegel moved from Antwerp to Brussels, where he married Mayken Coecke, the daughter of the painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Mayken Verhulst. As registered in the archives of the Cathedral of Antwerp, their deposition for marriage was registered 25 July 1563. The marriage itself was concluded in the Chapel Church, Brussels in 1563.
Pieter the Elder had two sons: Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder (both kept their name as Brueghel). Their grandmother, Mayken Verhulst, trained the sons because “the Elder” died when both were very small children. The older brother, Pieter Brueghel copied his father’s style and compositions with competence and considerable commercial success. Jan was much more original, and very versatile. He was an important figure in the transition to the Baroque style in Flemish Baroque painting and Dutch Golden Age painting in a number of its genres. He was often a collaborator with other leading artists, including with Peter Paul Rubens on many works including the Allegory of Sight.
Other members of the family include Jan van Kessel the Elder (grandson of Jan Brueghel the Elder) and Jan van Kessel the Younger. Through David Teniers the Younger, son-in-law of Jan Brueghel the Elder, the family is also related to the whole Teniers family of painters and the Quellinus family of painters and sculptors, through the marriage of Jan-Erasmus Quellinus to Cornelia, daughter of David Teniers the Younger. [2]
Credits and Attributions:
[1] IMAGE and Quote about this picture: Wikipedia contributors, “The Peasant and the Nest Robber,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Peasant_and_the_Nest_Robber&oldid=1160869804 (accessed September 12, 2024).
[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Pieter Bruegel the Elder,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder&oldid=1218696694 (accessed September 12, 2024).
Life in the Realm of Fantasy 