Brueghel, Pieter the Younger (1564-1638)
Winter Landscape with Skaters and Bird Trap
c.1601
Oil on panel, 40 x 57 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
This is one of the copies of the original painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1565 made by his son, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, from 1601, since the copy in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, which is considered the oldest of these copies of the son, is signed and dated that year. At the viewer’s feet opens a wide panorama occupied by a village with an icy canal meandering between the houses. In the distance, on the horizon, the profile of a city is outlined. On the ice there are numerous characters skating or playing colf, a game that originated in the 13th century and became all the rage in the 17th century, to the point that municipal governments were forced to publish numerous regulations to restrict it to certain areas. out of the city. It was finally banned. It survived in Scotland and from there it would return to the continent in the 19th century transformed into current golf. The unity and descriptive accuracy invite us to think that Pieter Bruegel the Elder copied a real landscape. However, as usual in this painter, naturalism is apparent. The preponderant role of the bird cage at the foot of the tree that rises in the foreground and the presence of the skaters have led some authors to interpret this scene as a moralizing allegory about the fragility of human existence, which is exposed into dangerous traps. (MNP)
Compare:
Bruegel the Elder, Pieter (c.1525-1569)
Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap
1565
Wilton House, UK
Bruegel the Elder, Pieter (c.1525-1569)
Winter Landscape with Skaters and Bird Trap
c.1565
Musées Royaux de Belgique, Brussels