Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The object of the following book-list is to mention not everything that has been printed about Pieter Bruegel but only such volumes and articles as have definite value. The major cause of its shortness, however, is the fact that the literature of the subject is surprisingly small in quantity; in English, particularly, there is almost nothing beyond short paragraphs in some histories of art and the usual unilluminating brevities of general reference works.

Pieter Bruegel l’Ancien. Son Oeuvre et son Temps. Par René Van Bastelaer et Georges Hulin De Loo. Bruxelles: G. Van Oest & Cie.: 1907.

This, the first volume to be published on Bruegel, remains the standard work. For the handsomeness and completeness of its reproductions combined with the accuracy and thoroughness of its text, treating every aspect of the painter’s life and work, it is a notable accomplishment in book-making and in scholarship. What has since been written and the pictures that have since been discovered still do no more than supplement certain phases of it; nor can it be superseded until someone is prepared to give time and money to a thorough search of European galleries and private collections. It is now, however, somewhat difficult to obtain.

Les Estampes de Peter Bruegel l’Ancien. Par René Van Bastelaer. Bruxelles: G. Van Oest & Cie.: 1908.

Within its chosen field this volume also remains the standard and needs only supplementing by later researches. Its 278 plates reproduce all the prints then thought to be by Bruegel or after his designs.

Pierre Bruegel l’Ancien. Par Charles Bernard. Bruxelles: G. Van Oest & Cie.: 1908.

This, which appeared immediately after the two preceding volumes, may fairly be described as a good popularization of them, with additional historical material drawn from other sources. The thirty reproductions are very good half-tones; the text gives a satisfactory account of the painter’s life and times, although there is too much reliance upon the mere subject-matter of the pictures and although parts of Van Mander’s clumsy narrative are transposed into French of debatable suavity. It is the only generally available biography in French. To any reader of it my indebtedness to it for facts (other than those given by Van Mander) and my occasional difference of interpretation will be equally evident.

Der Bauern-Bruegel. Von W. Hausenstein. München & Leipzig: R. Piper & Co.: 1910.

This is commended by Herr Friedländer (see eighth item) as a portrait of the man Bruegel; as a discussion of his work, however, it has been superseded in German by Herr Friedländer’s own book.

“The Adoration of the Kings” by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. By C. J. Holmes. In The Burlington Magazine; vol xxxviii, no. ccxv: London: February 1921.

The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. By B[ryson] B[urroughs]. In The Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: vol. xvi, no. 5: New York: May 1921.

The fact that these two articles ostensibly deal each with a single picture should not obscure either their general interest or their significance as indications and instruments of the contemporary tendency to assign to Bruegel a higher rank than he has had heretofore.

Von Eyck bis Bruegel. Studien zur Geschichte der Niederländischen Malerei. Von Max J. Friedländer. Berlin: Julius Bard: 1921. (Of Bruegel: p. 169 to end).

The main point of interest about Bruegel in this book is that the author gives a catalogue of paintings which differs considerably, both in its omissions and in its additions, from that given by M. Hulin (see first item).

Pieter Bruegel. Von Max J. Friedländer. Berlin: Propyläen-Verlag: 1921.

This is the standard general work in German, and contains a trustworthy translation of the entire text of Van Mander concerning Bruegel. Even those who do not read German might well possess this book for the clearness and frequent brilliancy of its 101 half-tone reproductions, the majority of which are from drawings and prints. Herr Friedländer is the only continental scholar so far whose work takes cognizance of the picture now in the Metropolitan Museum.

Bruegel. Von Kurt Pfister. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag: 1921.

This short essay merits notice as a piece of writing. The 78 half-tone reproductions are not very clear, but they include more than a dozen which are in neither Friedländer nor Bernard.

Pieter Bruegel. Vierzehn Faksimiledrucke nach Zeichnungen und Aquarellen. Mit einer Einleitung von Kurt Pfister. München: R. Piper & Co.: 1922.

This handsome series of large plates is a publication of the Marées-Gesellschaft and for faithfulness in facsimile reproduction is not to be surpassed.

Pieter Brueghel’s “Fall of Icarus” in the Brussels Museum. By Arthur Edwin Bye. In Art Studies: Mediæval Renaissance and Modern: No. 1. Princeton: University Press: 1923.

A sympathetic though not stylistically distinguished essay in appreciation, written around the Fall of Icarus in the Brussels Museum.

Renaissance Art. By Elie Faure. New York: Harper & Brothers: 1923. (Of Bruegel: pp. 276–286).

This author’s habitual saturation with his subject-matter has enabled him to convey the multitudinous quality to be felt in many of Bruegel’s pictures and also to adumbrate the humanity of soul behind them; but he has almost nothing to say about the more narrowly æsthetic merits which permit of Bruegel being ranked among the great; and even on the score of subject-matter Bruegel’s livingness is almost smothered under a rhetoric made sluggish with anecdotal detail.

Breughel. By Aldous Huxley. In The Calendar of Modern Letters: vol. 1, no. 6: London: August 1925.

This essay is a little sermon on the virtue of comprehensiveness in the appreciation of art, with Bruegel as an ideal text. It is not itself a comprehensive presentation of the painter or his work and it has very few traces of the verbal brilliancy which has had so much to do with putting this author’s novels in the best-selling class; but it may make the name of Bruegel known to many who are not in a position to penetrate his work on their own account. I note a curious slip in the transposition of titles between the Brussels Numbering at Bethlehem and the Vienna Massacre of the Innocents.

Die Zeichnungen Pieter Bruegels. Von Karl Tolnai. München: R. Piper & Co.: 1925.

This book has immediately taken rank as the standard authority on the drawings; its 104 large half-tone plates reproduce every drawing listed in its catalogue.

Pieter Bruegel der Aeltere. Siebenunddreissig Farbenlichtdrucke nach seinen Hauptwerken in Wien und eine Einführung in seine Kunst. Von Max Dvořák. Wien: Oesterreichischen Staatsdruckerei.

This wonderful production is just being completed; its magnificent plates embody the utmost resources of modern color-printing. An edition with the text translated into French is announced for the month of July, and another with a translation into English is expected during the year.

The foregoing annotations are based upon actual reading and examination of the books and articles mentioned. I think it well to append a few additional items which I have had no opportunity as yet to examine; my study of the volumes already listed, however, leads me to believe that they possess interest and importance. The words in italics at the end of each entry indicate its source among the books in the previous section.

Pierre Brueghel Le Vieux. Par Henri Hymans. (Gazette des Beaux-Arts: Paris: 1890 et 1891.) Pfister: Bibliography.

Les Brueghel. Par Emile Michel. Paris: 1892. Van Bastelaer & Hulin, p. 294.

Pieter Brueghel der Aeltere und sein Kunstschaffen. Von Alex L. Romdahl. (Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, Bd. 25: Wien: 1905.) Tolnai and Pfister: Bibliographies.

Pieter Bruegel im Kupferstichkabinett zu Berlin. Von Ludwig Burchard. (Amtliche Berichte aus der Königliche Kunstsammlung in Berlin, Bd. 34: Berlin: 1912–13.) Tolnai: Bibliography.

Die Niederländische Landschaftsmalerei von Patinir bis Bruegel. Von Ludwig von Baldass. (Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, Bd. 34: Wien: 1918.) Tolnai: Bibliography.

Der Bauern-Bruegel und das Deutsche Sprichwort. Von Wilhelm Fraenger. (München: 1923.) Tolnai: Bibliography.