Pieter Bruegel: Once in a lifetime

Bruegel was already a sought-after artist during his lifetime. "The Tower of Babel" is one of his most famous paintings. This painting usually hangs in Rotterdam. There is, however, a second version, which is located in Vienna. In the major Bruegel show, the two works of art are exhibited together for the first time. One difference: the Viennese picture is about four times as large.

Four works of art were specially restored for the exhibition in Vienna. Among them was the painting "The Suicide of Saul" — a small-format painting that had never before been restored. The work documents that Pieter Bruegel also mastered miniature painting. "There is incredible precision in the smallest dimension," said Sabine Haag of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

This picture has a special place in the exhibition: it is shown without a frame — and from both sides. "This was important to us because not only the front of a picture can be meaningful, but also the back," said Haag. In this case, you can see how thin the wooden panels really are — only 4-5 millimeters, stabilized with a wood-slatted frame.

During his trip to Italy, Pieter Bruegel also went to Naples. However, he did not create his painting until 10 years later. The attribution of the painting to Bruegel was very controversial for a long time. Only now — after the restoration — have the curators of the exhibition decided to definitively attribute the painting to him.

Two small monkeys sit chained in a wall arch; in the background are a river and the port city of Antwerp. Technology helped the researchers reconstruct the individual phases of the creation of the image: from the priming, to the preliminary drawings, to the application of the various layers of paint.

This picture, too, has undergone extensive research. "It is the first winter picture in European art history," said Haag, about one of her favorite pictures. The analysis revealed that changes had been made to the image. Among other things, a hunter and a dog were added later.

Bruegel was sometimes referred to as "Peasant Bruegel." Unjustifiably, the exhibition organizers in Vienna say. With this show they also want to show Bruegel's thematic breadth. "He was familiar with humanistic ideas, he traveled to Italy, he addressed social topics and religion. He was more than just an artist who depicted peasant life," said Haag.

In a finely drawn landscape, three beekeepers in unusual protective clothing are handling their seemingly empty beehives. It is an enigmatic picture that seems to elude clear interpretation. The drawing is on loan from the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and can normally be seen in the gallery of prints there.

Stylistically, Bruegel is often compared to Hieronymus Bosch. In this painting, the situation is eerie: People are dying everywhere, skeletons seem to take over, there is no consolation, no redemption, no reference to a redeeming god. The picture was probably created around 1562. Normally, it hangs in the Prado in Madrid. In Vienna it can be seen until January 13, 2019.