Candidate of Art History Maxim Kostyrya (St. Petersburg).
Pieter Bruegel the Elder. "Hunters in the Snow." 1565. Vienna. Museum of Art History.
Brothers Limburg. "The month of February." 1413-1416. Chantilly. Condé Museum.
Giuseppe Arcimboldo. "Winter". 1573. Paris. Louvre.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder. "Winter Landscape with Skaters and a Bird Trap." 1565. Brussels. Royal Museum fine arts.
Hendrik Averkamp. "Skating". 1620s. Moscow. Pushkin Museum.
Harmens van Rijn Rembrandt. "Winter Landscape". 1646. Kassel. Picture gallery old masters.
Jacob van Ruisdael. "Winter Landscape". 1670. Amsterdam. Rijksmuseum.
Etienne-Maurice Falconet. "Winter". 1763-1771. St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum.
Ancient civilization, in essence, did not know winter in its northern version, familiar to Russian people. The Mediterranean winter is a child of a mild maritime climate. Because the sea cools more slowly than the land, and the winds blowing from the sea warm the land, winters in southern Europe are relatively warm. They get a lot of rain, but little snow, if any, falls.
Severe northern winters with frost and snow were associated in the minds of a Greek or Roman exclusively with the world of barbarians. Civilized Resident ancient state considered the uneducated, rude barbarian closer to an animal than to a person. According to the Greek, these people, devoid of reason and worthy only of pity, were deprived of the attention of the gods, and the heavy natural conditions in this context were perceived as another divine punishment. At the same time, the features of northern nature were somewhat like a miracle. The “father” of history, Herodotus, in the 5th century BC. who visited the Northern Black Sea region, where the barbarian Scythians lived, left the following description of the local climate: “In the area lying even further north of the land of the Scythians, as they say, you cannot see anything and it is impossible to penetrate there because of flying feathers.” He further explains his thought: in those places “the winter is so severe that there is an unbearable cold there for eight months”; at the same time there are “constant snowfalls... anyone who has seen such flakes of snow will understand me; after all, snow flakes look like feathers, and due to such a severe winter, the northern regions of this part of the world are uninhabited.”
The great Roman poet Ovid, in 8 AD. e. exiled to the Scythian city of Tomy (now the Romanian Constanta), in his “Mournful Elegies” he laments the misfortunes of the “evil winter”:
But only a dull winter
the calloused head will stand up,
It will barely whiten the earth
marble winter frost,
Boreas will be freed.
And the snow will gather near Arkt -
A time of bad weather and storms
oppresses the earth heavily.
(Translation by S. Shervinsky.)
Struck by the unusual climate, Ovid could hardly have thought that in a few centuries the “unshakable” Roman Empire would fall under the onslaught of peoples who considered snow and cold a natural part of their life.
It is in art northern countries In Europe, the theme of winter has become widespread. In medieval artistic culture, images of winter were more often included in cycles not of seasons, but of months. Each month had its own set of labors and entertainments. As for the winter months, the most typical activities for them were hunting, collecting firewood, slaughtering pigs, and entertainment included skating and playing snowballs.
The ancestor of the winter scenes of the north was the miniature “The Month of February” from “The Magnificent Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry” (Chantilly, Condé Museum). The Limburg brothers, who illustrated this manuscript in 1413-1416, can be considered among those masters who opened a new era in the understanding of nature and the place of man in it. Human life was first perceived in its inextricable unity with the surrounding world, which from now on becomes a true Home for the individual, instead of the medieval Kingdom of Heaven.
Some kind of fabulous peace emanates from this scene. The world, covered with snow, seems motionless, resting from the labors of the past year. Active activity in a space constrained by cold would be an encroachment on the silence, cold, and fragility reigning there. Isn’t it better to sit at home and, gracefully (or not so) lifting your dress, move your feet to the hot fire? And yet, winter, making a person’s existence quite difficult, rewards him for this with the beauty of the landscape. One can be surprised at how organically the specificity of the aptly captured detail is combined with the majestic calm of the overall composition in the painting “The Month of February.” Chains of footprints on the snow surface, sheep huddled in a corral, a cloud of steam escaping from the mouth of a chilled man - all this is almost more touching than the sloping backs of the hills against the background of a leaden sky and an enchanted forest with trees as fragile as a dream. Without a doubt, art has never known a more lively, attentive and loving view of nature. It remains to add that in the upper part of the miniature the chariot of the Sun and the zodiac signs of this month are depicted - Aquarius and Pisces.
In medieval and Renaissance art, another way of reflecting reality was always popular - allegory. The seasons (as well as parts of the day) were included in the most widespread range of allegorical concepts. To create artistic image, V to the greatest extent corresponding to the “original”, considerable skill and rich imagination were required from the artist. One of the most original painters of this trend is Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593). He composed his allegorical figures from a variety of different objects that were in one way or another related to the theme of the picture. Thus, “Winter” (1573, Paris, Louvre), part of the “Seasons” series, is presented in the form of an old man, whose head and neck are formed by a dry, twisted tree trunk, his hair by intertwined branches, and his mouth by a tree mushroom. The image created by the artist could have caused disgust if not for the softening details: green ivy, bright yellow winter fruits - lemon and orange, as well as a garland of flowers and leaves that serves as the internal frame of the composition. These items add color diversity, and with them winter appears less harsh and scary.
Arcimboldo’s “composite” method served as a visual expression of the ideas widespread at that time about the connection between the microcosm and the macrocosm, the small and the large, the part and the whole. The natural philosophy of the Renaissance taught that man and the objects around him, from grains of sand to stars, influence each other, therefore, everything in nature is interconnected. The unity of the universe was also emphasized by the relationship between the seasons and the four “first” elements - Fire, Earth, Air and Water. Arcimboldo, who also wrote the “Elements” series, combined the two cycles compositionally and ideologically into a holistic picture of the world. The images were divided into pairs in which the profiles were turned towards each other. Air entered into dialogue with Spring, Fire - with Summer, Earth - with Autumn, and Water - with Winter, for, according to the definition of Agrippa of Nettesheim, “water is cold and wet.” It is likely that the master’s works also reflected two other natural philosophical teachings about the four ages human life and four temperaments, where winter corresponded to old age and a phlegmatic character. Thus, Arcimboldo’s work outgrows the framework of a hobby for the elite and receives a “universal” sound corresponding to the spirit of the Renaissance.
The work of the great Dutch painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (circa 1525/30 - 1569) had a huge influence on the development of the European landscape in general and the winter landscape in particular. Bruegel created several winter landscapes at once (which no artist had done before). All of them are divided into two directions, which could be called “grand” and “chamber”. The first direction includes the famous painting “Hunters in the Snow” (1565, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), part of the “Months” cycle. The medieval tradition became for the painter only a starting point for creating works that were innovative in both visual media, and in terms of internal content. If in the early calendar scenes leading place occupied by seasonal work, Bruegel made the transformation of the landscape itself his main motive. By combining alpine landscapes and native Flemish views into a grandiose “world panorama” and completely subordinating human activity to the existence of nature, the artist presented an image of the majestic Mother Nature, all-encompassing and all-consuming. These cosmic landscapes combine the ideal and a thorough study of reality, a sublime philosophical concept and bright everyday details, alluring unknown distances and lived-in cozy corners. The universe, according to Bruegel, is united in its most diverse manifestations.
The main idea of the cycle - the harmony of man and nature, the momentary and the eternal - is extremely vividly embodied in “Hunters in the Snow”. The integrity of the image is achieved by all possible means. The combination of near and far views chosen by the artist is generally traditional for Dutch art. The viewer is offered the perception of not just a landscape, but part of a huge universe that “continues” beyond the boundaries of the picture. However, in Bruegel’s painting there appears such a powerful impulse of movement into depth that the connection between man and the world takes on a different quality: from contemplative it turns into effective. This tendency is strengthened by the ingenious “metamorphosis”. The well-known observation that the viewer “enters” the picture together with the hunters should be continued: the vertical lines of the trees connect the hunters with the birds. The line of birds and the vector of people's movement are directed towards one point - a distant church at the foot of the rocky mountains. Figuratively speaking, we start the journey as a human and continue as a bird, we see first with human and then with bird’s eyes. The effect is especially enhanced by the contrast of states: slowly walking through deep snow together with tired hunters, we then seem to soar to a bird's eye view. The eternal miracle of Bruegel’s painting is the overcome “force of gravity”, freedom that accompanies and spiritualizes the difficult vale of human life.
But apart from unity big picture of nature, Bruegel convincingly conveys the numerous shades of the unique state inherent only in winter. The dominance of white and gray-green tones plays a leading role in creating the image of a world bound by frost. The feeling of cold is emphasized by the contrasting relationship of black tree trunks with planes of white snow. The role of such an accent is also played by a black bird against the backdrop of snow-capped mountains, in flight, cutting through the air like a knife. But the cold cannot reign supreme. Yellow and reddish-ocher shades in the color of fire, houses, people's clothing and dog fur tell the story that human activity brings a piece of its warmth into this icy world.
Bruegel’s “chamber” winter landscapes include “Winter Landscape with Skaters and a Bird Trap” (1565, Brussels, Royal Museum of Fine Arts). The composition of this work again combines a close-up view of the village with the distances lost in the foggy haze, but the picture is more “cozy” than the Viennese canvas, the space in it unfolds more calmly, and the tonal principle is more strongly felt in the color scheme. The winter landscape from Brussels is interesting in another aspect: on the right side of the picture - the kingdom of birds - a trap for birds is depicted, on the left there are skaters on a frozen river, in the ice of which an ice hole is visible. The didactic subtext is very transparent: just as careless birds can be caught in a snare, so careless people who have lost their vigilance risk falling through the ice. The picture was extremely popular in XVI-XVII centuries: More than a hundred copies made from it are known. Two such copies of the work of the artist's son Pieter Bruegel the Younger are in collections State Hermitage(hereinafter - GE) and State Museum Fine Arts named after. A. S. Pushkin (hereinafter referred to as the Pushkin Museum).
The winter landscape reaches its highest flowering in Western European painting in the works of Dutch masters of the 17th century. In Holland, where genres were divided into many subgenres, landscape painting was no exception. It was divided into marina, panoramic, forest, city views, moonlight scenes, etc. Images of winter in this series occupied a very honorable place, for not only were they one of the first varieties of landscape that established themselves in Dutch art, but also became peculiar business card Holland. Moreover, they were no longer considered only as part of the “Seasons” or “Months”, but became completely independent works art.
The most famous master, who specialized in the subgenre of “entertainment on ice” from the beginning of the 17th century, was Hendrik Averkamp (1583-1634). All his life he painted winter landscapes, “populated” by many people. Almost always this is a view of a frozen river or canal, where representatives of all ages, professions and classes are gathered. In North Holland, ice skating was not just a sport, but part of the way of life, one of the indispensable attributes of winter life. “At this time of year, things tended to be slower and everyone had more time on their hands. In those days and weeks when the lakes and canals were frozen in ice, no one parted with their skates. Young and old, men and women, preachers, burgomasters, princes - literally everyone lived on the ice.<…>Gliding on wooden skates with a metal blade curved at the nose, twice the length of the foot, people skated either alone, with their hands behind their backs, leaning slightly forward, or in pairs, with their hands clasped together like a pretzel.<…>Children and old people were carried in chairs on runners. The boys slid on the sled, pushing off with sticks<…>At the edge of the skating rink, innkeepers pitched tents and lit fires. Here you could have a glass, warm your hands on the fire and return to the ice again” (Paul Zumthor).
Life was literally in full swing on the ice. Catching fish and playing kolf (stick) - the prototype of modern hockey, trading all kinds of goods and traveling on business, decorous walks and love flirting - everything merged into a bright, full of dynamics spectacle. This mood of cheerfulness and fun is reflected in the quatrain “December” by the great Dutch poet Jacob Kats:
Now it's the skates' turn
and joyful laughter:
Neither a fly nor a mosquito is a problem today!
And is it worth wishing for a different fate for yourself:
In winter we are nobles,
and in the summer we are slaves.
(Translation by E. Vitkovsky.)
In his early work, Avercamp followed the Flemish scheme of the winter landscape, known to him as paintings, and from engravings. From the artist’s later paintings (“Ice Skating”, 1620s, Moscow, Pushkin Museum), one can trace how the Bruegelian tradition is enriched with the features of the national Dutch worldview. The Flemish influence is evident in the choice of a high horizon and some diversity of color. At the same time, a huge role is played by the transfer of light-air perspective, that special state of the atmosphere when “the air is devoid of any transparency; a kind of impenetrable veil stretched between heaven and earth extinguishes every ray...” (V. Thore-Burger).
In the early 1640s, Dutch landscape painting entered its heyday. In Rembrandt's "Winter Landscape" (1646, Kassel, Old Master Picture Gallery), the sun shines in full force. This work is unique both in the work of the great artist and in the Dutch landscape of the 17th century as a whole. Firstly, the favorite themes of Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn's (1606-1669) landscape paintings were fantastic views with dramatic contrasts of light and shadow. The Kassel picture, both in its plot and in the nature of its execution, is closest to landscape sketches master, made by him during walks in the vicinity of Amsterdam. Secondly, Dutch painters They painted their landscapes in the studio, and Rembrandt’s work, as researchers believe, was made from life, that is, in the open air. If we assume that this assumption is correct, then Rembrandt can be classified as the direct predecessors of the Impressionists, who considered working in the open air to be the most important component of the artistic method.
“Winter Landscape” is an incredible, almost stunning fusion of sincerity, freedom and strength, inherent only in genius. A close point of view seems to take the viewer “inside” the picture itself, where in the peaceful calm of the clear winter day the inhabitants of the village go about their business. Their leisurely pace is conveyed to him, he feels the freshness of the frosty air, and rejoices in the bright rays of the sun. He is delighted by the bottomless blue of the sky and the aching tenderness of the trees bare in the wind. The depth of space and its saturation with light are achieved by Rembrandt through a skillful comparison of light and dark areas, a combination of dense and transparent layers of painting. There can hardly be any doubt that the Kassel painting is the most enlightened and joyful image of winter in Dutch art.
The opposite mood permeates most of the winter landscapes of Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/29-1682), in which a feeling of frozenness and oppressive silence dominates. In the painter’s mind, winter was undoubtedly associated with the philosophical idea of the dying of nature and the loneliness of man. The theme of winter as a “dead” season was not new to Dutch culture: in the poem “Winter of Life” by Jacob Kats, this time of year is directly identified with death:
Deprived of clothes, winter is coming to the fields,
And then it seems to us,
that it is death itself.
(Translation by E. Vitkovsky.)
In Ruisdael's "Winter Landscape" (c. 1670, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) we find a similar attitude. Trees and buildings are motionless, as if immersed in deep sleep; It seems that the rare human figures on the cold-bound river are just as motionless. The light of the evening sun, hopelessly competing with the onset of a huge black cloud, fills the scene with inescapable sadness. Soon darkness will cover everything, and a sleep similar to death will reign. In the same poem, Kats writes:
There's no movement
in the silence of the night, -
So is there a difference
between death and sleep?
In the next one, XVIII century Winter was viewed almost exclusively through the prism of allegory. Most likely, the plot itself was too “severe” for the gallant age of Rococo. The sculpture “Winter” (1763-1771, St. Petersburg, State University) was commissioned from the famous French sculptor Etienne-Maurice Falconet (1716-1791) by the favorite of Louis XV, the Marquise de Pompadour. By coincidence, the master was able to finish the statue intended for the Versailles Park only in Russia. Falcone created a captivating image: his winter is a lovely young woman, with a gentle movement sheltering chilled flowers from the frost. The “coldness” of classicism, quite appropriate to the plot, is softened by the charm and subtle grace of rococo. Before the creation Bronze Horseman“The sculptor considered “Winter” his best work. Catherine II placed the statue in the Hanging Garden of the Hermitage. And now we can only imagine how stunning real snow must have looked on the beautiful marble shoulders.
N.N. Alexandrov
Analysis of Pieter Bruegel’s painting “Winter” (Hunters in the Snow)
The work analyzes the most famous painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Muzhitsky) “Hunters in the Snow. Winter". The analysis was carried out both in the visual-geometric plane and in cultural context– from the perspective of the mental chronotope.
INTRODUCTION
About the place of Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the history of mentality.
Absence of Self, hero-group.
CHAPTER 1. BRUEGEL AND TARKOVSKY
1.1. Bruegel as the “alter ego” of Andrei Tarkovsky.
1.3. The technique of cosmic detachment-estrangement.
1.2. The picture is like a film.
CHAPTER 2. UNDERSTANDING HOW TO PACK SLIDES
2.1. Hierarchical axis, or “world tree”.
2.2 Nested spatial scales.
2.2.1. Boundaries of the communal world.
2.3. Microscale and the world of details.
2.3.1. Lack of aerial perspective.
2.3.2. The world of details of Pietard Bruegel.
CHAPTER 3. CHRONOTOP OF THE PICTURE
3.1. Space.
3.1.1. Linear one-dimensionality.
Indicator of linearity types.
Geometric and natural in the linearity of the picture.
Roll call on types of linearity.
3.1.2. Planar two-dimensionality
Frame problem.
Weight structure of the picture plane.
Diagonals and spatial model of the painting.
Crystal axes.
Proportional dominants in the cultural cycle.
Proportion of Bruegel's painting "Hunters in the Snow".
Ovality of the visual field (“field of clear vision” and periphery).
3.1.3. Volumetric three-dimensionality
Natural and artificial “umbrellas”.
Visual arrows.
Interlocking triangles of axes.
Start reading the picture.
Bowl of the valley.
Transition to perspective.
Three-dimensionality of the visual field and perspective.
Four visual semantic centers.
3.2. Time
Horizontal axis “past – present – future”, or cycle
CHAPTER 4. ASSEMBLY
4.1. Package of meanings and meanings
The "slide pack" principle
Four elements and diversity
4.2 Other means of expression
Textures and Textures
Sounds and smells in the picture
CONCLUSION
The problem of reproductions
Cropping
Color
What leads to distortion
LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
On the place of Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the history of mentality
When they ask me why you need this Bruegel, why is he so important, etc., I answer: he lived in the center of history, in its middle, and expressed it.
Why This so important? Because every thing or phenomenon fully expresses itself precisely in the middle of the process of its existence. If we take humanity as a whole and consider its history, the middle will be the moment when Bosch, Bruegel and Bach lived. There is no longer the depressingly complete dissolution of man into WE, characteristic of the classical Middle Ages, but there is still no today’s ugly protrusion of the “I” to the point of complete ignoring of the “We”. There is a balance that permeates this picture.
The most important thing in terms of meaning is that we are facing the middle of human history. If we look back from here, into the past, then we probably won’t see such an idyll there. There was relative peace, but more and more often there were wars and raids. There was also relative freedom, but there was more and more slavery and so on in the same spirit. And such communal freedom is very temporary. But Tolstoy also observed her in real life here. Three hundred years is not so little.
Absence of Self, hero-group
Once again: ratio human freedom and community freedom(groups) here is relatively balanced. But this is precisely the moment in history when the freedom of the Self awakens in Europe. The threshold of the New Time.
Let's look forward in history - industrial civilization will soon arise and this ever-accelerating race of the "individual man" will appear. This is what separates a person from Nature and community. And the fragile harmony and balance that existed only once in history will be destroyed forever.
I once wrote about this: it is in the late Middle Ages that most of the action takes place fairy tales. Maybe that’s why we relate to the late Middle Ages this way, with a certain amount of childhood love and faith in this fairy tale instilled in us. And we are actually not at all interested in how it “really” was.
What is important is the system of a small settlement as a whole, as an organism, and there are many living elements in it - people, animals, birds. But in the picture there are no isolated units, as in Italian Renaissance. It's a simple world peasant community, without aristocrats and intelligentsia. There is no one to particularly highlight and detail. Late Middle Ages.
Although in other paintings of the same time simple life This kind of image often serves as a frame, a background. In Jan van Eyck's work, dwarfs, ships, roads, a city, a bay - all this is nothing more than a background for a canonical sacred scene (Madonna and Child) and, most importantly, a portrait of the customer - the chancellor.
Rice. 1. Jan van Eyck. Madonna of Chancellor Rollin.
And Bruegel is not without reason “peasant”. He loves his community, although he laughs more and more at it and its jokes. And if he introduces some allegorical and mythological characters, then they are not the main ones in them. The main thing for him is this beating of life, the bustle of the mass of people. Collective Whole.
Bruegel is a cunning man: he seems to “photograph” this world, but in many ways he creates it from many observations, rising to real generalizations. Creates as its own myth. Your own fairy tale, very similar to reality.
What’s interesting is that he wrote a lot of things - and great, according to his time. But this particular picture fell into the frame of genius, already according to the Hamburg count. There are a lot of people who love her. And some even try to explain why. We will try again and again.
The world of a painting is harmonious for us, and this is not a matter of taste, but a matter of the attitude that the artist emits and his era contains.
This simple thesis is actually tricky. You can take many opposites and find how they balance in this picture. Moreover, I mean both substantive and formal pairs.
From the point of view of a modern young, energetic and striving forward person, all this is old, almost a gray photograph of the past - and nothing more. This attitude of individualism is understandable, since it must correspond to brightness, speed, flashing, jerking, overtaking, etc. And here it’s a quiet and slightly “gray” life, as leisurely as it can be in childhood. And as important as all the events of any day of childhood - a very long one.
And the most important difference is that the picture contains completely different meanings, which give rise to our own personal meanings when reading. What is characteristic is that meanings and meanings are set to balance, to some forgotten norm. Everything in this snow-covered world is tuned to the rhythms of nature and to harmony with it, coordination, pairing.
That's the whole difference with today's world. And in which world is it more pleasant to live? The answer is obvious. That's why many modern games and whole virtual worlds like Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” they simply draw material from there, from this time in history, slightly altering and combining its elements - in a purely postmodern manner. But in the end, some of today’s youth still run around the forest in hoods with bows. Just like then.
Rice. 2. Youth subcultures: medieval motifs of stylization.
Part one is available atPart two is available at
N.N. Alexandrov, Analysis of Pieter Bruegel’s painting “Winter” (Hunters in the Snow) // “Academy of Trinitarianism”, M., El No. 77-6567, pub. 17167, 01/02/2012
Art of the Netherlands 16th century
Pieter Bruegel's Landscape with Skaters and a Bird Trap. A Flemish village drowned in snowdrifts. Winter graphics of trees – bright and delicate against the sky. On the ice of a frozen river, carefree people skate, walk, play something, and chat animatedly. Behind the houses, snow-covered expanses open up, here and there low trees stick out from the snow, and far, far away on the horizon the high roofs of the city are barely visible. The whole picture emanates peace and carefreeness - as if it were some kind of Flemish “Sunday”, a long-awaited rest from a week’s work. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, like no other Flemish artists, combined the talent of a landscape painter and the talent of a miniaturist. A passion for landscape was awakened in him by Italy, traveling through which and comprehending the ideas and aesthetics of the High Renaissance, Pieter Bruegel was fascinated by its light-filled nature; His passion for detail was nurtured by his native Flanders, and every square centimeter of each of his works lives like an independent miniature, painted with incredible care. The landscape grandeur of the universe – and the motley mosaic of human figures.
“Landscape with Skaters and a Bird Trap” is the title of this small, exquisite pearl-colored painting painted by Pieter Bruegel shortly before his death, in 1565. It was particularly popular, and today 127 copies of it are known, 45 of which were painted by Bruegel the Younger, the artist’s son. Landscape with a bird trap. Where is the trap? Frankly, you don’t immediately recognize it in this heavy door, slightly raised above the ground - grain is generously scattered under it, and carefree birds, just like people, are scurrying around. Where's the birdcatcher? Hardly among these little men in bright clothes: almost all of them turned away from us, each was passionate about something of his own, immersed in his own occupation. A note of anxiety flows into the serene music of a winter day. Or maybe he's waiting for his moment behind those trees in the foreground? Where are we, the spectators, the observers? And if you now turn your gaze from the birds back to the river? Are these the little people we are actually watching?
After all, Peter the Joker (as Bruegel was nicknamed by his contemporaries) captured the landscape with high point vision, for some reason raised us above what was happening, and we cannot “enter” the picture, step onto the ice, as if we knew, we noticed something that skaters do not want to see. Bruegel more than once painted a river along which people - some slide, some walk, some fall and get up, and some have stopped. More than once he wrote the river of human life. However, in each painting this symbol takes on a new meaning. Here the river is a trap, a trap: at any moment the ice can crack, and frivolous figures will not have time to escape. Human life is fragile and ephemeral. As is the life of birds unaware of the trap. Another confirmation of this idea is found in the depiction of birds and people in the foreground: they hardly differ in size.
On some copies of the painting “Landscape with Skaters and a Bird Trap,” you can see Joseph harnessing a donkey near one of the houses. Nobody notices him. The inhabitants remain indifferent to the sacred history happening here and now. Pieter Bruegel's painting is contradictory - medieval skepticism and Renaissance faith in man, fantasy and realistic detail, moral teaching and love of life are closely intertwined in his work, but it seems that somewhere there, behind the first clear semantic layers, all the opposites converge...
Today I propose for consideration, perhaps, the most famous painting Pieter Bruegel the Elder - “Hunters in the Snow.” To analyze it, I will use the wonderful analysis of the painting that Natalia Ovchinnikova has already conducted for the magazine Around the World.
Five paintings from the cycle “The Months” (“Seasons”) by Pieter Bruegel have survived to this day. The series continues the theme of the cycle of seasons, popular in medieval art. Initially, there were most likely six paintings in Bruegel’s cycle, and “Hunters in the Snow” correspond to December and January, that is, this work was conceived as the fifth, penultimate: the year in the Netherlands was then counted from Easter.
The painter’s friend Abraham Ortelius noted: “In all the works of our Bruegel there is more hidden than is depicted.” In the picture there are distant mountains and a sea harbor with boats, a river and a pond, a city, a castle and village huts, groves and hills. With a medieval passion for lists, Bruegel visually lists animals, birds, people, as well as the occupations of the villagers and their life's vicissitudes: returning from a hunt, playing on the ice, seasonal and everyday work, putting out a fire...
But all these animals, people and their activities are no longer just signs of calendar life - the artist of the 16th century puts a new, Renaissance meaning into this harmonious universe.
Bruegel entered people and their way of life into a generalized image beautiful world as an important and inseparable component of it. Art critic Otto Benesch believed that the pantheistic ideas of Renaissance philosophers were reflected in the art of the Northern Renaissance: God does not look at the earth from distant heavens, but resides in every particle of a single universal mechanism.
Long shot
1. Frozen Bay 
2. Mountains. Bruegel apparently took a landscape detail that was uncharacteristic for the Netherlands from an Alpine landscape. In the early 1550s, he passed through the Alps and sketched them. Bruegel’s biographer Carel van Mander admired the accuracy of the reproduction: “They said about him that when he was in the Alps, he swallowed all the mountains and gorges and, arriving home, spat them back onto his canvases...” 
3. Someone rushes to help the neighbors put out the fire 
4. Farm 
5. Brushwood collector with a cart 
Medium shot
6. Villages. Such houses and churches with bell towers are typical for any village in the Renaissance Netherlands, and the area from which Bruegel painted the views has not been established. Most likely, this is a generalized image of a rural area. 
7. Playing with a ball and sticks. The forerunner of bandy existed in different countries medieval Europe in both winter and summer versions. The children in the painting are probably playing the Dutch winter game of kolv. Its principle was to push a ball made of wood or leather with a stick and hit the target with it. 
8. Skates. Popular entertainment in the Netherlands during the Renaissance. IN medieval Europe were made mainly from animal bones. The Dutch are credited with improving skates: in the 14th century wooden blocks, tied to the shoes with leather straps, they began to attach a strip of metal to the bottom to make them glide better. By 1500, it had evolved into a sharp metal blade—this is how the prototype of the modern skate design arose. 
9. Icestock. Bruegel's winter-themed paintings are considered the first known depictions of this curling-like game. It is still popular in Austria and Germany. Children nearby are playing with a top, which in our country is better known as kubar 
10. A woman carries brushwood 
11. A man breaks brushwood, and a woman pulls her friend on a sled. 
12. Bird trap 
13. Magpie. By the way, she is often mistaken for an eagle. IN European tradition this bird is considered talkative and thievish. In bequeathing his last painting, “The Magpie on the Gallows,” to his wife, it was no coincidence that Bruegel alluded to certain “gossips” (possibly informers) who had once harmed him. But in “The Hunters...”, devoid of satirical overtones, the magpie, like the crows in the tree, are most likely just species of birds that winter in the Netherlands. 
14. Sign. The hotel is called Dit is inden Hert (“At the Deer”). The sign depicts this animal and a saint kneeling in front of it, probably the Great Martyr Eustathius Placidas or Saint Hubert, patrons of hunters. According to legend, Eustathius was a Roman military leader. One day while hunting, he was chasing a deer, but suddenly he saw a shining cross with a crucifix between the animal’s horns. The hunter fell to his knees and converted to the Christian faith. Hubert had the same vision. He, being a bishop, hunted on Good Friday: the vision enlightened the sinner, and he, repenting of his frivolity, from that day became an exemplary Christian. 
Foreground
15. Bonfire. The peasants lit it to smoke the pork carcass over the fire. This activity in the illustrations of books of hours traditionally corresponded to December. In November the pigs are fattened, and in December the meat is slaughtered and prepared. 
16. Frozen dogs 
17. The hunters themselves 
18. Hunting equipment - snares and traps 
19. Fox. With dogs and pikes they could hunt not only small game, but also deer, wild boar or bear, but this time the hunters had meager catch. Hunting in medieval art was often associated with December and January 
A completely psychedelic and most detailed analysis of this work on 200 pages can be read or downloaded
The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna houses a magnificent collection of works by the Bruegel family of artists. Not only paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Muzhitsky), but also his sons - Pieter Brueghel the Younger (Infernal) and his brother Jan Brueghel the Elder (Velvet, Flower, Paradise) are presented in the exhibition of this magnificent museum.
Many researchers of the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Muzhitsky) believe that it was he who introduced the winter theme into painting, but why? formerly artists They didn’t paint winter landscapes, they don’t explain. It can be assumed that the great Dutch artist could not help but reflect in his work the cold snap, atypical for Europe, caused by small ice age, dating from the XIV-XIX centuries. However, according to scientists, it is winters mid-16th century centuries turned out to be much warmer compared to previous and subsequent centuries, but the fact that they were snowy was nothing unusual for Europe at that time.
On the other hand, Bruegel, like other artists of his time, did not paint landscapes from life. Moreover, there are no such rocky landscapes in Flanders, so it can be assumed that for his work the artist used the impressions received from a trip to Italy and Switzerland in 1552-53. His paintings are fantastic combinations of dissimilar elements, arranged in such a way as to make it more convenient to show the Flemish in as much detail as possible. village life in its various manifestations. At the same time, another hypothesis seems quite reasonable: during the period of the Spanish occupation of Flanders, Bruegel wanted to show some ideal peasant peaceful life, that is, to depict the village as he would like to see it.
All the winter landscapes in the museum date back to 1565-66, when Bruegel conceived and painted a series of paintings of months or seasons, so he simply could not ignore winter and the associated changes in the life of peasants.
The painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Muzhitsky) “Hunters in the Snow” is very often used in Europe in the subjects of Christmas cards, and in Russia it is known from A. Tarkovsky’s 1972 film “Solaris” and numerous reproductions. This small oil painting on a wooden board - 117 x 162 cm - is recognized as one of the masterpieces of European landscape painting.
When you look at this painting in a museum, at first you are surprised at how small it is, and you don’t notice how you are drawn inside.
Together with three hunters and their dogs with their tails between their legs, you stand on a hillock, tired and exhausted from an unsuccessful hunt, the trophy of which turned out to be only a small fox. In the air, slightly foggy from frost, a frozen, endless and eternal valley opens in front of you, in which snow, ice and bare trees alternate, whose black nakedness is only emphasized by the miraculously surviving dry leaves in the foreground.
Nearby, peasants are roasting a pig on a fire; sparks fly from the fire, but there is no feeling of warmth. A peasant woman carries a bundle of brushwood across the bridge, children skate and play on the ice on two ponds. The stopped mill wheel was overgrown with giant icicles, upside down, repeating the topography of the rocky cliffs rising in the distance.
The combination of fantastic elements created such a strong sense of authenticity that all doubts about the authenticity of what was happening disappeared.
Inside the painting, it is unknown whether summer will ever come. Most likely not.
Scientists and viewers will always argue about what exactly Bruegel wanted to say with his paintings, examining the details of paintings and reproductions and asking various questions from global ones: “Is the return of hunters without prey a hint of the eternal result of human life in old age?” to the completely pragmatic: “Isn’t it curling, hockey or icestock that the children in the artist’s painting are playing?”
There is not enough reliable information about the life of the founder of the Bruegel dynasty of artists to make final conclusions, so rather we can consider the hypotheses put forward by art historians and build more or less informed and motivated guesses. But I think that the most important thing is that these paintings encourage people to ask questions to this day, that after almost five hundred years the works of the artist and his sons do not leave viewers indifferent. This is particularly evidenced by the siren, which constantly turns on automatically in the museum at the moment when a curious visitor bends closer to the painting to examine its smallest details: in the X room, where the Bruegel paintings hang, the siren goes off, it seemed to me, more often than in others.
When visitors admire the paintings of the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum, many of them often forget to look carefully at the signs, and then tell their friends or write on the Internet: “There is a good Bruegel in Vienna.” This is a misconception, since in fact the exhibition presents various artists from one talented Dutch dynasty, and even the spelling of the surname differs in the surname of the sons with the letter h. For example, from the dedicated winter theme landscapes, only the first "Hunters in the Snow" belongs to the brush of Pieter Bruegel (Bruegel) the Elder (Muzhitsky), and the other two - "