The Bethlehem Census

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The Bethlehem Census (Pieter Bruegel the Elder)
The Bethlehem Census
Pieter Bruegel the Elder , 1566
Oil on oak
115.5 x 164.5 cm
Royal Museums of Fine Arts , Brussels

The Bethlehem Census is a work by Pieter Bruegel the Elder from 1566 . The 115.5 cm × 164.5 cm oil painting on oak shows the arrival of the Holy Family in Bethlehem. It is located in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels.

content

The viewer looks at a wintry Flemish village from an elevated position. The sun is just setting, and a crowd has gathered in front of a corner house in the front left. More are on the way there, including Joseph and Mary, who are depicted like all other people, apart from the fact that Mary uses a donkey as a mount. A pig is slaughtered in front of the corner house and another is brought in. The villagers don't let themselves be deterred and go about their usual activities: a hut is being built in the upper right half of the picture, children are having a snowball fight and are having fun on the ice. Playground equipment is slide-mandrel sledges and ice spinning tops. A pub sign with a swan hangs from a hollow, dead tree. Before that, a barrel is poured out. At the top left is a massive church, then residential houses and at the top right ruins. On the frozen river at the top left, there are sack porters who support themselves with sticks.

construction

The broad village square is opened up to the left through the corner house. From there an axis runs to the ruin on the top right. This axis is opened diagonally after the corner house. A second, weaker line of sight runs from there to the church at the top left. The center of gravity has shifted from the center to the corner building on the left, this “conscious disturbance of the balance” is a mannerist principle that Bruegel often used, including hiding what actually happened in a large number of incidental matters. As in the hunters in the snow , the verticals of the trees form a counterweight to the diagonals, just as there the horizon is set high.

interpretation

The subject of the picture is the census at Bethlehem from the Gospel of Luke ( Lk 2.1  ELB ). However, Bruegel relocates the events completely to his time and home. The corner house on the left is a tavern, recognizable by the green wreath and a mug hanging on the wall. This is where taxes are collected on behalf of the Spanish central government: A sign on the facade to the right of the “counter” shows the Habsburg double-headed eagle with an imperial crown and chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece . One of the assembled people is wearing an orange and black striped coat and has obviously come from far away: Such a figure can also be seen in another painting by Bruegel, the sermon of John the Baptist . Maria can be recognized by her old-fashioned blue coat, she is carrying a basket in front of her, her mount is a donkey. Josef goes ahead and leads ox and donkey to the inn. As a carpenter, he wears a drill on his belt and a saw on his shoulder. At the bottom right, over the ice, comes another couple with babies. Incidentally, it is not clear from the Gospel whether Jesus was born in the census, that is, whether or not he was counted.

Long before Bruegel it was customary to depict pig slaughter on calendar pictures for December. Here the man kneels on the pig's neck while the woman collects the pig's blood with a long-handled pan. The straw is used to flare (singe) the bristles. The flaming can also be seen in another winter painting by Bruegel, the hunters in the snow.

  • Figurehead with double-headed eagle

  • Tax collectors

  • Mary and Joseph

  • Makeshift bar in a hollow tree

  • The pig slaughter

Image data and provenance

Signature in the lower right corner

The picture is signed and dated 1566. The dimensions of the oil painting on oak are 115.5 × 163.5. It was originally in the Van Colen de Bouchout collection in Antwerp . It cannot be proven whether the family, who had lived there since 1540/42, commissioned the painting. It later came to the Edmond Huybrecht Collection, Antwerp. From there it was auctioned in 1902 by the Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België.

reception

There are twelve copies made between 1600 and 1610, most of them by Pieter Brueghel the Younger . In Alfred Stevens' picture “Das Atelier” (1869), one of these copies hangs on the wall in the background.

  • One of the copies of Pieter Brueghel the Younger

  • The Atelier (Alfred Stevens)

literature

  • Aaron Fogel: Bruegel's The Census at Bethlehem and the Visual Anticensus. In: Representations 54 (1996), pp. 1-27.
  • Christian Gräf: The winter pictures of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Ä. , VDM Verlag Dr. Müller 2009 ISBN 978-3-639-12775-1 Chapter: Census at Bethlehem (1566) - Secularized religious subject, social and political criticism
  • Christian Vöhringer: Pieter Bruegel. 1525 / 30-1569 , Tandem Verlag (hfullmann imprint) 2007 ISBN 978-3-8331-3852-2

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Christian Gräf: The Winter Pictures by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Ä. P. 77 ff
  2. ↑ a b c Christian Vöhringer: Pieter Bruegel. 1525 / 30-1569 , p. 76