The Adoration of the Magi in the Snow
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| The Adoration of the Magi in the Snow |
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| Pieter Bruegel the Elder , 1563 |
| Oil on oak |
| 35 × 55 cm |
| Oskar Reinhart Collection in Winterthur |
The Adoration of the Magi in the Snow is a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder from 1563. It shows the visit of the Wise Men from the Orient to the Holy Family . The painter moves the setting to a wintry Flemish village. The oil painting on wood measures 35 × 55 cm and is the first known representation of a " worship " with snowfall. The painting is part of the Oskar Reinhart collection “Am Römerholz” in Winterthur .
The paintings
construction
The viewer looks at a Flemish village from an elevated position through heavy snowdrifts . The sky is gray-yellow and the colors of the snow surfaces range from white to yellowish-green tones. As is often the case with Bruegel, a diagonal from bottom left to top right defines the picture, here reinforced by the wall of the bridge protruding into the picture below. Structuring elements are the lath leaning against the wall of the dilapidated building on the right and the makeshift roof on the right edge of the picture, under which a fire is burning. The trees, the horizontal axes of the buildings and the wall by the stream at the front left have a stabilizing effect on the diagonal composition.
content
The three kings have just arrived and are worshiping the baby Jesus, their entourage dominates the village street. The kings are highlighted by their red and yellow robes. However, Mary is half covered and Joseph remains indistinctly in the background. The adoration of the title has moved to the left edge of the picture and the villagers don't seem to notice it. In any case, they do not pay any attention to it and go about their usual activities. Directly opposite the stable in the foreground on the bank of a stream someone has just felled a tree and two people are checking the strength of the ice with a beam. A hole has been made in this ice sheet. A man in a green jacket (this color does not appear anywhere else) is carrying a bucket away from the waterhole, while another in a red jacket is carrying a bucket. Near the hole, a child is sliding on the ice with a sliding mandrel sled .
execution
In many cases, the figures in the small-format oil painting on wood are only sketchily indicated with rough brushstrokes. Only the villagers and especially the water carriers in the foreground are more carefully executed. The kings and the water carriers are the only figures highlighted in color. Apparently, the painter was more concerned with the overall impression than with details. Together with the snowfall, the scene looks like a snapshot.
interpretation
Bruegel transfers the adoration of the kings from the actual oriental environment to his Flemish homeland. The picture was taken during the so-called "Little Ice Age", in which unusually severe winters hit Europe. From today's perspective, the picture belongs to a series in which Bruegel depicted winter in a different way (see also origin and dating). The ruin on the right edge of the picture was often interpreted as a Romanesque church in the past, today more as a dilapidated house, possibly a fortress structure. This is indicated by a small outer tower at the top left. In the background, a second large, dilapidated building can be seen indistinctly.
Origin and dating
The picture was first documented on July 17, 1696 in the inventory of the Paris-based Cologne patron and collector Eberhard Jabach from the wealthy Cologne family dynasty Jabach . Previously it belonged to the Silesian nobles Count Saurma. The description of the picture reads: “A winter with a lot of figures, in the foreground the three kings who adore Our Lord; there is a lot of snow falling and a small child is riding a sledge over the ice; the old Bruegel. ”In modern research, however, it has only been attributed to Bruegel since 1931. The hard-to-read date on the lower left is clearly visible in the enlargement as 1563: MDLXIII. Accordingly, the picture is the first of a series of winter paintings: The hunters in the snow from the seasonal cycle , winter landscape with ice skaters and bird trap (both 1565), the census in Bethlehem 1566, and the Bethlehemite child murder from around 1566. Today it belongs to the Oskar Reinhart collection in Winterthur.
Copies of “Adoration in the Snow” and earlier scenes of Bruegel's worship
Many copies of this picture exist, most of them by Pieter Brueghel the Younger . However, the snowfall has largely been omitted from these pictures.
Bruegel also painted other adoration scenes: The Adoration of the Magi in 1564 , now in the National Gallery of London. This oil painting on wood with the dimensions 111 × 83.5 cm is his only portrait format. Another picture from around 1564 with the same title is a tempera painting on fabric (121.5 × 168 cm) in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels. Only a few of such so-called handkerchiefs have survived .
photos
A copy of Pieter Brueghel the Younger
The "Tüchlein" (around 1564, Royal Museums of Fine Arts)
Adoration of the Magi (National Gallery London)
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Depictions of falling snow in front of Bruegel
The first known representation of falling snow is in the town hall of Siena . There Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted depictions of the four seasons from 1337–39 - including a man in a snowstorm with a hat and a thick coat holding a snowball as "Winter". Masolino da Panicale portrayed the legend of the “founding of Santa Maria Maggiore” in the 1420s. Falling snow there in the middle of summer showed not only the location, but also the layout of a St. Mary's Church to be built. ( Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte , Naples)
photos
Ambrogio Lorenzetti: "Winter"
"Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore"
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Christian Gräf: The winter pictures of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Ä. VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken, ISBN 978-3-639-12775-1 , chapter "Adoration in the Snow (1567) - Secularized religious iconography and innovative depiction of snowfall", p. 104ff.
- ^ The winter pictures of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Ä. P. 108.
- ^ The winter pictures of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Ä. P. 107
- ^ The winter pictures of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Ä. P. 110f.
- ↑ Christian Vöringer: Pieter Bruegel - 1525 / 30-1569 Tandem Verlag GmbH 2007 (hfullmann imprint) p. 76ff ISBN 978-3-8331-3852-2
- ↑ Florian Heine: The first time , chapter: It gets cold in art p. 33 ISBN 978-3-7658-1511-9
Web links
Old peasant woman | The Adoration of the Magi (Bruegel, 1564) | The Adoration of the Magi (Bruegel, around 1556) | The Adoration of the Magi in the Snow | The country wedding | The peasant dance | The conversion of Paul | The Bethlehemite Child Murder | The fall of the blind | Christ and the Apostles at the Sea of Galilee | Christ and the adulteress | The three soldiers | The gloomy day | The magpie on the gallows | River landscape with a sower | The yawn (?) | Great Tower of Babel | The port of Naples | The return of the flock | The haymaking | The wedding dance | The hunters in the snow | The battle between carnival and fasting | The children's games | Little Tower of Babel | The grain harvest | Christ Carrying the Cross | The cripples | Landscape with the Flight into Egypt | Landscape with the fall of Icarus (?) | Seascape with a burning city (?) | The misanthrope | The nest ejector | The Dutch proverbs | The sermon of John the Baptist | The land of milk and honey | Saul's suicide | The fall of the rebelling angels | Death of the virgin | The great Grete | The triumph of death | The Bethlehem Census | The wine for the feast of St. Martin | Winter landscape with ice skaters and bird trap | Two monkeys | Twelve Proverbs (?)
(?) Attribution controversial | Formerly attributed to Bruegel