In 2019, Flanders and Brussels are looking back the crucial role that Pieter Bruegel the Elder played in the art-historical landscape of the sixteenth century. The 450th anniversary of his death is a great opportunity to rediscover the artist’s work and that of his son Jan Brueghel the Elder.
Jan Brueghel I (1568–1625), View of a Windmill Down a Crowded River,1620
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Jan Brueghel
The Snyders&Rockox House is taking a closer look at the drawings of Jan Brueghel I (1568–1625), son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and brother of Pieter the Younger. Together with Peter Paul Rubens, Jan was one of the most successful Flemish artists of the first quarter of the seventeenth century. He was at home in every market – an inspired painter of landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, historical themes, hunting scenes and allegorical and mythological subjects. Jan is seen as the inventor of the floral still, but he was also an important innovator in the depiction of landscapes, in which his father’s artistic legacy and his visit to Italy played no small part.
Jan Brueghel I (1568–1625), A Coach on a Country Road, ca. 1589-1625
Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp
The art of painting is underpinned by that of drawing, by which the artist’s talent and creativity can be measured. No previous exhibition has been dedicated solely to the drawn oeuvre of Jan Brueghel I. This major event is curated by Jan Brueghel scholars Dr Teréz Gerszi and Dr Louisa Wood Ruby, supported by Bernadett Tóth.
The exhibition will feature some fifty drawings and several paintings, loaned by leading institutions like the Louvre, Rijksmuseum and British Museum.