A visual Journey into the Bible The Book of Genesis

A Visual Journey into the Bible Page: 12
exactly as God had separated light from darkness It is not surprising then that after a
father – Pieter the Elder – so much dedicated to pictures of immediate reality of earth,
one son – Pieter the Younger – would show pictures of the underworld and the other –
Jan the Elder – of paradise. Pieter the Younger and Jan the Elder were born in
Brussels, but both worked in Antwerp. They had sons in their turns that were artists.
After Pieter I, his son, Pieter II, studied with his father. Jan I Brueghel had a son Jan
II. This son mostly only copied his father and his technique is often indistinguishable
from his father’s. Jan II had a son Abraham (1631-1697) called the Neapolitan, who
was a member of the San Luca Academy of Rome. Various other sons of the
Brueghels continued the artistic tradition way into the eighteenth century. There was
an Ambrosius Brueghel (1617-1675), Jan Baptist called Meleager (1647-1719),
Philips (1635-1662), a Ferdinand (died 1637) and a Jan Peter Brueghel. The family
did not only consist merely of artists in direct line of parentage. Jan van Kessel for
instance was a grandson of Jan II while David Teniers (1610-1690), the son and pupil
of David Teniers the Elder, married Anne, a daughter of Jan II. Their son, David III
(1638-1685) was equally a painter.
Antwerp had become a metropolis port around the turn of the century, which burst of
energy, of trade and it was a hub of overseas transport. It was a financial centre where
the world’s first stock trading house had been founded. This Antwerp would suffer
much from the religious wars of the sixteenth century. Brabant was part of the
Spanish kingdom then, a remnant of the empire of Charles V. The Netherlands fought
for independence and for their Protestant views of Christian religion against the
Catholic Spanish armies and Antwerp had had a very important Protestant community
too. Flanders and Brabant were rich but caught between the Netherlands and France,
separated from Spain by a thousand kilometres but still governed buy it. The town
would rise against Spain together with the Netherlands, but the Spanish armies
conquered it definitely in 1585. The Antwerp Protestants were then more or less
peacefully driven out and Antwerp would remain Catholic forever. Much wealth left
with the Calvinist traders to Amsterdam, but sufficiently rich merchants and bankers
remained to live in Contra-Reformist Antwerp to guarantee its splendour. These were
avid for paintings to decorate their houses, churches and community buildings.
Antwerp rolled on with its acquired wealth and still grew in splendour.
Jan Brueghel the Elder learned his profession not from his father, who had died
young, but from the Antwerp masters Pieter Goetkint and Gillis van Coninxloo. He
was inscribed in the Saint Lucas Guild of painters of Antwerp in 1557 already.
Two features linked all the painters of the Brueghel family: Italy and landscapes.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder had been to Italy from 1551 or 1552 to maybe as late as 1555
or 1556. Pieter had travelled to Rome and he had been as far as Naples. He even
visited Palermo on Sicily. Jan Brueghel the Elder also journeyed to Rome and he
visited Milan from 1595 to the spring of 1596. He had met in Rome the Lombard
collector Federico Borromeo. Pope Clement VIII appointed this Borromeo archbishop
of Milan in that same year 1595. Federico admired Jan’s paintings, bought many of
his works and even stayed with him in correspondence after Jan’s stay in Milan. Jan
occasionally bought Antwerp landscape paintings for the archbishop and sent them to
Milan. Federico Borromeo naturally also became a patron of Jan II. Archbishop
Federico Borromeo (1564-1631) was a patron of many artists and he particularly liked
northern landscape painting, notably of Paul Bril and Jan the Elder. I8. The archbishop
Copyright ©: René Dewil Date: October, 24 2000