BRUEGHEL IN BLACK AND WHITE

Just for the record, it wasn’t a gang of Gauloises-smoking, coffee-swigging Frenchmen in 1920s Paris who invented surrealism. Nor was it Man Ray or Salvador Dali. The fact is it’s always been around, with one of the high points being Flemish art of the 15th and 16th centuries.

While Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c.1525-1569) is renowned for conventional Biblical paintings, such as his iconic Tower of Babel (1563), and earthy depictions of Flemish peasant life, he also created allegories and painting based on proverbs, like "Big Fishes Eat Little Fishes" (1557) that have a strong surrealistic bent, evocative of the work of his predecessor Hieronymus Bosch.

Sourced from the collection of Royal Library of Belgium “The World of Brueghel in Black and White” at the Bunkamura Museum of Art takes a look at the more outlandish side of this great painter by focusing on his highly detailed and very eccentric engravings.

C.B.Liddell
Metropolis
15th July, 2010

Newer Post Older Post