The return of the flock

The return of the flock
Pieter Bruegel the Elder , 1565
oil on wood
117 × 159 cm
Art History Museum

The return of the flock is one of six seasons by Pieter Bruegel the Elder from 1565 . The 117 × 159 cm oil painting on wood depicts autumn (October and November). The exhibition venue is the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (Hall 10, GG 1018).

The paintings

Content and design

From an elevated point of view, the viewer looks at shepherds who are driving a herd of cattle into a village with long stakes . A river flows down in the valley and mountains loom in the background. The foreground and background are dark, but the river in the valley is in the sun. The trees are bare or about to shed their leaves and storm clouds are gathering in the sky. A bird net can be seen near the center of the picture and behind it in the middle distance a gallows hill with gallows and upright wheels . There and on the opposite side of the river, the vineyards have already been harvested or gleanings are taking place. The conspicuous white cow in the foreground increases the depth effect as a repository motif.

motive

In all of his seasonal pictures, Bruegel does not show any real areas, but rather overview landscapes composed of various elements. This picture differs from the others in that the hilly river landscape with the herd of cattle cannot be derived from Flemish calendar pictures or customs. Bruegel apparently borrowed from the alpine cattle industry . Viticulture was also little or hardly widespread in the north, albeit a popular motif in books of hours . It is conceivable that the picture was intended as a complementary complement to a lost spring picture with a herd of cattle.

History and classification

In Bruegel's time, there were not four but six seasons in the Netherlands: early spring, spring, early summer, midsummer, autumn and winter. Made in 1565 for the Dutch art collector Niclaes Jonghelinck , the series came into Habsburg possession as early as 1594 as a gift to Archduke Ernst. Two more pictures, The Hunters in the Snow (winter) and The gloomy day (early spring) belong to the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. The hay harvest (early summer) is in the Lobkowitz Palace in Prague Castle and the grain harvest (midsummer) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The picture of spring is lost → Pieter Bruegel the Elder (The pictures of the seasons) .

See also

• List of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christian Gräf - The Winter Pictures by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Ä. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller 2009 p. 146 ISBN 978-3-639-12775-1
2. ↑ Christian Vöhringer - Pieter Bruegel: 1525 / 30-1569 , Tandem Verlag 2007 (hfullmann imprint) pp. 100 to 102 ISBN 978-3-8331-3852-2
3. ↑ Christian Vöhringer - Pieter Bruegel: 1525 / 30-1569 , p. 100
4. ↑ residence.aec.at ( Memento of the original from May 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on January 20, 2012  
5. ↑ The painting on the museum's website ( Memento of the original from September 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on September 14, 2013  
6. ↑ metmuseum.org accessed on May 16, 2020

Web links

Commons : The Return of the Herd  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files