Bosch and Bruegel:
An Examination and
Comparison of
Triptych of the
Temptation of Saint Anthony
and
The Numbering at
Bethlehem
by
Michael S. Beyer
June 2000
On initial examination of the
artist's most famous works, Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter
Bruegel the Elder seem to have little in common. The
revelation that Bruegel studied and copied the works of Bosch
begins to shed light on Bruegel's atypical and original style
found in the late Renaissance of northern Europe. The
comparison of works by the two artists also creates an
interesting contrast of technique, content, and focus,
revealing perhaps not two vastly different personalities but
at least two distinct periods of time for creating art.
Similarities between the works of
Bosch and Bruegel can be noticed primarily in the latter's
early works. The similar style is no accident, and the
confusion over which artist did such works as "Dulle Griet" would probably have been a
compliment to Bruegel. When Bruegel was beginning his
career the works by Bosch were still very popular despite the
artist's death nearly thirty years prior. The imitation
of style was intentional, either at the command and
instruction from Hieronymus Cock, Bruegel's first employer at
the House of the Four Winds, or simply by market and patron
demand. Bruegel's works were intended to replicate the
imagination and vocabulary of Bosch as much as possible.
Early engravings by Bruegel such as "the Seven Deadly
Sins" or "The Virtues" appear to be from the
mind of Bosch if not for Bruegel's name in the lower right
side corner. In fact, these two series "launched
(Bruegel's) career with unexpected speed." (Foote p. 80)
Thus, when Bruegel continued to ape Bosch with paintings like
the "Fall of the Rebel Angels", the similarities were
intentional and, Bruegel most likely hoped, successful.
The representation of the fantastic creatures and monsters is
not the only way Bosch influenced Bruegel. Bosch and
Bruegel both used very complex compositions. Bruegel
may be credited for developing the wimmelbild but Bosch was
certainly a forerunner. The horizon of both artists'
works tends to be uplifted slightly akin to a stage setting
but not as much as in Gothic art. This uplift gives the
artists not only a bird's eye view but allows more space in
which to use for representing countless actions and
adventure.
| A typical Bruegel contains several large groups of people. In "The Numbering at Bethlehem", Joseph and the Virgin on donkey are dwarfed and virtually ignored and hidden by the scene around them. A busy crowd in front of the Inn of the left foreground draws immediate attention, acting as a repoussoir as the crowd is formed upon a diagonal pointing toward the upper right of the painting. |  "The Numbering |
|
In
the center this crowd is broken by the larger simpler forms
of barreled wagons covered by a neutralizing and minimized
tone of a snow covering. From this center the eye is
left to follow countless activities, but led by a tall tree
on the left of the painting leading the eye to the river and
the sun where miniature figures carry bundles on their backs.
These figures with bundles follow a diagonal pointing back
right to just above the central barrel-wagons. The
motif of the wagons is continued by a broken or disassembled
wagon above which in turn leads the eye to the second large
crowd around another inn. To this crowd's right more
wagon wheels, thus a motif connecting and referring back to
the center. A line of buildings in back form a town
and blocks the view of a horizon, thus pushing the eye back
down the right side of the painting and to the second river.
Here a tree marks the right hand border of the painting again
leading the eye towards the second river. On this river
children play seated on sleds and using sticks: a sharp
contrast with the older, walking and hunched figures with
bundles using sticks as canes instead of sled-oars, crossing
the first river above. The second river curls down
inwards to the viewer's left: thus a crowd, barreled-wagons,
and a river all immediately surround Joseph and Mary framing
them in obscurity.
| Bosch's work remains just as complex, though less organized. In the "Triptych of the Temptation of St. Anthony", the viewer does not have a clear focus. St. Anthony is situated obviously and directly in the middle of the central panel but too much action and fantastic creatures surround the Saint. There are three elements aiding the attention to St. Anthony, though none very successful. The first is the grouping of four men crossing the bridge in the foreground on the left side panel. |  Left Wing
|
| The group heads toward the central panel on a diagonal pointing directly at St. Anthony. On the right side panel the largest figure in the foreground, which is a cloaked and bearded figure similar in appearance to St. Anthony, is seated with head turned slightly towards the viewer. More importantly, this figure is aided with the light-colored rock he sits upon, composing a diagonal again towards the St. Anthony in the central panel. |  Right Wing
|
| The third device, and perhaps the most successful, is the open space directly below and to the rear of St. Anthony in the central panel. The ruined building sets a stage, aided by the light gray hue of the stone contrasting with the predominantly dark colors in the remainder of the composition; this difference of hue attracts the eye. |  Central panel
|
| This space around St. Anthony is in fact the only free-open space. Everywhere else the landscape breaks and rolls, creatures come and go, fires rage and winged creature fill the air. Even if all of Bosch's symbols could be understood today, they seem to bleed into one another, sharing the complicated and crowded spaces. |  Detail of the central
panel |
| Both
Bosch and Bruegel added figures to their works alla
prima. It can be inferred that Bosch added
figures to fill empty space while Bruegel added
figures to fill a pattern. Bosch and Bruegel
fill their works with crowds of creature and
characters, but only Bruegel finds a manner of
placement that pleases the eye and does not confuse
the senses. Bruegel made a quilt of images
while Bosch made a jumble. |
 Outer Wings
|
Bosch and Bruegel also share a characteristic emphasis they
give to individuals in their works. Despite those
rarities such as Bosch's "Calvary with Donor", few
of either artists work ever indulge the viewer with a
personal connection into the painting. The closest the
artists ever come to representing human personality is when
Bruegel portrays every-day activities or common Flemish
proverbs. Otherwise, Bosch's creatures are too horrific
and the humans too dumb and insulting for any viewer to feel
welcomed and involved by them. A viewer may recognize a
character as a Priest or an alchemist, but nothing beyond
that initial recognition and connection to surface
definition. In no work by Bosch is the viewer offered a
fainting Virgin or a crying Mary Magdelane as found in Roger
van der Weyden's "Descent from the Cross". In van der Weyden's the
characters may be Holy Saints but they non-the-less portray
shared emotions of humanity and not phantasmagorial
landscapes of Bosch. Bosch's St. Anthony stares out at
the viewer and might even exhibit a posture a viewer would
sympathize. St. Anthony, however, is depicted too small
and recessed into the painting to give any immediacy that
would connect with a viewer and override the fantasy
surrounding him.
Bruegel remains as distanced from the viewer as Bosch does.
Bruegel shows action but never human expression or detailed
faces. The artists force the viewer to stand apart from
humanity far from where one feels a part of the scene. The
viewer recognizes elements of the scene and story constructs
but never gains more detail or proximity to the story. By
way of vagurity and distance, a Pope
in Bosch's work is as meaningful as a child-on-sled
in Bruegel's. Both characters fill a role, play a part,
add to the story but have neither a name, a time nor a face.
Bruegel mimicked Bosch's style and acquired certain
characteristics. The differences of the artists far
outweigh their similarities. For one, Bruegel is as
mute for meaning as Bosch is for clarity. "Unable
now to communicate, a master who dearly loved enigma, the key
to which still has not been found." (Fraenger p. 9)
So not only are the dates and origins of works by Bosch
debatable but what the artist was attempting to communicate.
The difficulty lies in Bosch's chosen symbols, motifs, and
implications, which are all ambiguous. The voluptuous
nude figures can be interpreted as portraying man in a primal
state of nature and peace or the beauty and allure that the
Devil uses to encourage sin. Bosch is said to have been
alternatively a part of an Adamite cult and in opposition to
such sin and human folly. One can be certain that Bosch
was attempting to convey a message; his fantasies were not
just contemporary decoration.
During the century of Bosch a religious painting could not
have been made without choosing one side or the other: the
church or it's reformers. Thus, the Triptych Temptation
of St. Anthony contains nuns themselves tempting St. Anthony.
Alternatively, like Dante Bosch could be reminding viewers
that not even his Holiness the Pope is exempt from Hell.
Bosch has become ambiguous to our century, but his works are
none-the-less laden with possible narrative.
Bruegel, if not for the title of "The Numbering at
Bethlehem", portrays a purely secular view of the world.
The Virgin and Joseph with Donkey and Ox too easily blend
into the scene of wagons and roosters. While Bosch most
certainly had an agenda of one sway or another, Bruegel is
just as certainly absent of agenda (although the lack of an
immediate and obvious agenda might lean towards Protestant
philosophies). Bruegel is a painter long before a
preacher. In "The Numbering", crowds in front
of the two inns do not insinuate a negative connotation of
mankind. While Bosch would have depicted at least some
of this crowd as monsters, drooling and full of greed,
Bruegel is free of any acidic or hallucinatory depictions.
The crowd is well mannered, almost rigid; well dressed; a
parent grabs at a child in a motherly manner. Two pigs
are slaughtered but in a recognizably civil way. The
scenes of sin and redemption of Bosch are here with Bruegel
replaced by work, reward and play (again, a possible hint of
Protestant flavouring).
Bosch and Bruegel deserve credit for helping to develop genre
painting. Each artist forged their own unmistakable
(albeit imitated) styles so separate from their
contemporaries. Bruegel added to Patinir's formula for
landscape, almost perfecting the colors for the light of the
seasons. A print of a work by Bruegel the Elder is as
dull as a work by the artist's son. Pieter Bruegel the
Elder depicted the light of the day in such a manner that one
feels as if the time of day is written in captions. A
sun low in the sky can often be taken as a sunrise or sunset.
More reds might dominate than blues during a sunset, but this
all depends on season and location. Bruegel never
creates such a vague skyline or lighting. In "The
Numbering", the sun is obviously setting as work has not
been completed and the Virgin looks weary from riding all
day. This idea is reinforced by patterns of
yellowish-brown in the snow, apparently left behind by the
dying light of the sun. There is a glow in the sky that
leaves an impression of a waning winter's day.
Bruegel pays a great attention of detail to the form and
structure of things. The snow covering the
barreled-wagons is thick on top thinning at the edges just as
real snow coverings taper off near their border. The
figures Bruegel depicts come across as slightly stiff, but
because of the absence of detailed faces and emotion. The
figures are proportionally perfect. The tress are
highly detailed as do the buildings seem architecturally
sound. None of this is so with Bosch's "St.
Anthony".
The ruined shambles that St. Anthony kneels upon is not
created from one perspective. The arcade on the left is
not in agreement with the stage-like platform in the
foreground. Indeed, all of the structures in "St.
Anthony" look like a backdrop to a drama than parts of a
landscape. It becomes clear from examining
architectural structures alone that Bruegel's foreground
linked successfully with the background, where-as Bosch's did
not.
Bosch did not pay as much attention to light, either. There
is not a unified source of lighting, with the only references
to light being the shine on the large cherry in the central
panel and the whitening of objects surrounding the inferno of
the central panel's background. Bosch depicted a pretty
blue sky but the time of day is absolutely neutral and
negligible.
Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the elder were two unique
artists that were separated by no more than one century of
time. Bosch was influenced by his northern environment
just as Bruegel was influenced by his popular predecessor,
Bosch. Each artist's subject matter and style can be
pursued in ways that might take the researcher on quite
opposite pathways. Bosch and Bruegel do, however share
many characteristics in their works that are not always
immediately recognizable.
Reference List
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Foote, T. (1968). The
World of Bruegel. New York: Time-Life
Books.
Fraenger, W. (1999). Hieronymus
Bosch. Germany: G
+ B Arts International.
Lucie-Smith, E. (1996) The
Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms.
London: Thames and Hudson.
Larousse Dictionary of Painters.
(1981) London: Hamlyn Publishing Group,
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Louvre; Paris.
(1967) New York: Newsweek, Inc.
Mullins, E. (1981). Great
Paintings; Fifty Masterpieces, Explored, Explained and
Appreciated. New York: St.
Martin's Press.
Vermeersch, V. (1996). The
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(1968). New York: Newsweek, Inc.
Smets, I. The
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Tansey, R.G.; Kleiner, F.S. (1996).
Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 10th.
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Brace College Publishers.
Michael Sean Beyer grew up in Woodstock, Illinois. He attended the Fine Arts program at the University of Texas in Austin for two years, before quitting for financial reasons and joining the United States Air Force. He currently resides north of London, a member of the 352nd Special Operations Group at RAF Mildenhall. Mr. Beyer holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Maryland's European Division and plans to return to the States in October 2000 to pursue a graduate degree in art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His most recent focus has been drawing and photography. Mr. Beyer is twenty-four years old and can be reached at automeris_io@yahoo.com.
