1.
Anthony van Dyck
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Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England, after enjoying great success in Italy and Flanders. He also painted biblical and mythological subjects, displayed outstanding facility as a draughtsman, the Van Dyke beard is named after him. Antoon van Dyck was born to parents in Antwerp. By the age of fifteen he was already an accomplished artist, as his Self-portrait, 1613–14. He was admitted to the Antwerp painters Guild of Saint Luke as a master by February 1618. His influence on the young artist was immense, Rubens referred to the nineteen-year-old van Dyck as the best of my pupils. At the same time the dominance of Rubens in the small and declining city of Antwerp probably explains why, despite his periodic returns to the city, van Dyck spent most of his career abroad. In 1620, at the instigation of George Villiers, Marquess of Buckingham, van Dyck went to England for the first time where he worked for King James I of England, receiving £100. After about four months he returned to Flanders, but moved on in late 1621 to Italy and he was already presenting himself as a figure of consequence, annoying the rather bohemian Northern artists colony in Rome, says Giovan Pietro Bellori, by appearing with the pomp of Zeuxis. He was mostly based in Genoa, although he travelled extensively to other cities. In 1627, he went back to Antwerp where he remained for five years, a life-size group portrait of twenty-four City Councillors of Brussels he painted for the council-chamber was destroyed in 1695. He was evidently very charming to his patrons, and, like Rubens, well able to mix in aristocratic and court circles, by 1630 he was described as the court painter of the Habsburg Governor of Flanders, the Archduchess Isabella. In this period he produced many religious works, including large altarpieces. King Charles I was the most passionate and generous collector of art among the British monarchs, and saw art as a way of promoting his elevated view of the monarchy. In 1628, he bought the collection that the Gonzagas of Mantua were forced to dispose of. In 1626, he was able to persuade Orazio Gentileschi to settle in England, later to be joined by his daughter Artemisia and some of his sons. Rubens was a target, who eventually came on a diplomatic mission, which included painting, in 1630. He was very well-treated during his visit, during which he was knighted
2.
Flemish painting
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Flemish painting flourished from the early 15th century until the 17th century. These painters were invited to work at foreign courts and had a Europe-wide influence, since the end of the Napoleonic era, Flemish painters had again been contributing to a reputation that had been set by the Old Masters. The Franco-Flemish School of musical composition flourished at the same time, the so-called Flemish Primitives were the first to popularize the use of oil paint. Their art has its origins in the painting of the late Gothic period. Chief among them were Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes, Robert Campin, the court of the Duchy of Burgundy was an important source of patronage. From the early 16th century, the Italian Renaissance started to influence the Flemish painters, the result was very different from the typical Italian Renaissance painting. The leading artist was Pieter Brueghel the Elder, who avoided direct Italian influence, after the Siege of Antwerp, the Southern Provinces of the Netherlands remained under Spanish rule and were separated from the independent Dutch Republic. Following the deaths of major artists like Rubens in 1640 and the end of the Eighty Years War in 1648, a revival of painting in this region came in the advent of the Belgian Revolution of 1830 and work around that time is often considered Flemish. The painters, who flourished in the aftermath of this period, are usually referred to as Belgian rather than Flemish. That kingdom comprising Flanders, often influences also more recent artistss categorization, new York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Moderne Vlaamse schilderkunst van 1850 tot 1950 van Leys tot Permeke, cS1 maint, Multiple names, authors list Liedtke, Walter A. Flemish paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
3.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
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He also painted no portraits, the other mainstay of Netherlandish art. After his training and travels to Italy, he returned in 1555 to settle in Antwerp and he does the same with the fantastic and anarchic world developed in Renaissance prints and book illustrations. He is sometimes referred to as Peasant Bruegel, to him from the many later painters in his family. From 1559, he dropped the h from his name and signed his paintings as Bruegel, the two main early sources for Bruegels biography are Lodovico Guicciardinis account of the Low Countries and Karel van Manders 1604 Schilder-boeck. Guicciardini recorded that Bruegel was born in Breda, but van Mander specified that Bruegel was born in a village near Breda called Brueghel, nothing at all is known of his family background. Van Mander seems to assume he came from a peasant background, in keeping with the over-emphasis on Bruegels peasant genre scenes given by van Mander and many art historians. Breda was already a significant centre as the base of the House of Orange-Nassau, with a population of some 8,000, from the fact that Bruegel entered the Antwerp painters guild in 1551, it is inferred that he was born between 1525 and 1530. His master, according to van Mander, was the Antwerp painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst, between 1545 and 1550 he was a pupil of Pieter Coecke, who died on 6 December 1550. Bruegel possibly got this work via the connections of Mayken Verhulst, maykens father and eight siblings were all artists or married an artist, and lived in Mechelen. In 1551 Bruegel became a master in the Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp. He set off for Italy soon after, probably by way of France. He visited Rome and, rather adventurously for the period, by 1552 he had reached Reggio Calabria at the tip of the mainland. He probably continued to Sicily, but by 1553 was back in Rome, there he met the miniaturist Giulio Clovio, whose will of 1578 lists paintings by Bruegel, in one case a joint work. These works, apparently landscapes, have not survived, but marginal miniatures in manuscripts by Clovio are attributed to Bruegel, with one exception, Bruegel did not work the plates himself, but produced a drawing which Cocks specialists worked from. In 1563 he was married in Brussels, where he lived for the rest of his life, while Antwerp was the capital of Netherlandish commerce as well as the art market, Brussels was the centre of government. Van Mander tells a story that his mother-in-law pushed for the move to him from his established servant girl mistress. By now painting had become his main activity, and his most famous come from these years. His paintings were sought after, with patrons including wealthy Flemish collectors and Cardinal Granvelle, in effect the Habsburg chief minister
4.
Jan Brueghel the Elder
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Jan Brueghel the Elder was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. He was the son of the eminent Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder, a close friend of, and regular collaborator with, Rubens, the two artists were the leading Flemish painters in the first three decades of the 17th century. He was an important innovator who created new types of such as flower garland paintings, paradise landscapes. He further created genre paintings that were imitations, pastiches and reworkings of his fathers works and he was court painter of the Archduke and Duchess Albrecht and Isabella, the governors of the Southern Netherlands. The artist was nicknamed Velvet Brueghel, Flower Brueghel, and Paradise Brueghel, the first is believed to have been given him because of his mastery in the rendering of fabrics. The second nickname is a reference to his specialization in flower still lifes and these paintings have now been reattributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder. Jan Brueghel the Elder was born in Brussels as the son of Pieter Brueghel the Elder and his mother was the daughter of prominent Flemish Renaissance artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Mayken Verhulst. His father died about a year after Jans birth in 1569, Mayken Verhulst was an artist in her own right. The early Flemish biographer Karel van Mander wrote in his Schilder-boeck published in 1604 that Mayken was the first art teacher of her two grandsons and she taught them drawing and watercolor painting of miniatures. Jan and his brother may also have trained with local artists in Brussels who were active as tapestry designers, Jan and his brother Pieter were then sent to Antwerp to study oil painting. According to Karel van Mander he studied under Peter Goetkint, an important dealer with a collection of paintings in his shop. Goetkint died on 15 July 1583 not very long after Jan had started his training and it is possible that Jan continued his studies in this shop, which was taken over by Goetkints widow as no other master is recorded. It was common for Flemish painters of that time to travel to Italy to complete their studies, Jan Brueghel left for Italy, first traveling to Cologne where his sister Marie and her family lived. He later visited Frankenthal, an important cultural centre where a number of Flemish landscape artists were active and he then went to Naples after probably spending time in Venice. In Naples he produced after June 1590 a number of drawings and he worked for Don Francesco Caracciolo, a prominent nobleman and priest and founder of the Clerics Regular Minor. Jan produced small-scale decorative work for Don Francesco, Brueghel left Naples for Rome where he resided from 1592 to 1594. Paul Bril was a landscape specialist from Antwerp who had moved to Rome at the end of the 16th century, together with his brother Mathijs Bril, he created atmospheric landscapes for many Roman residences. Brueghel took inspiration from Brils lively drawings and small-scale landscapes of the mid-1590s, during his time in Rome Jan Brueghel became acquainted with Hans Rottenhammer, a German painter of small highly finished cabinet paintings on copper
5.
Brussels
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Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels which is the capital of Belgium. The Brussels-Capital Region is a part of both the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community, but is separate from the region of Flanders or Wallonia. The region has a population of 1.2 million and an area with a population of over 1.8 million. Brussels is the de facto capital of the European Union as it hosts a number of principal EU institutions, the secretariat of the Benelux and the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are also located in Brussels. Today, it is considered an Alpha global city, historically a Dutch-speaking city, Brussels has seen a language shift to French from the late 19th century onwards. Today, the majority language is French, and the Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. All road signs, street names, and many advertisements and services are shown in both languages, Brussels is increasingly becoming multilingual with increasing numbers of migrants, expatriates and minority groups speaking their own languages. The most common theory of the origin of Brussels name is that it derives from the Old Dutch Broekzele or Broeksel, meaning marsh, Saint Vindicianus, the bishop of Cambrai made the first recorded reference to the place Brosella in 695 when it was still a hamlet. The origin of the settlement that was to become Brussels lies in Saint Gaugericus construction of a chapel on an island in the river Senne around 580. The official founding of Brussels is usually situated around 979, when Duke Charles of Lower Lotharingia transferred the relics of Saint Gudula from Moorsel to the Saint Gaugericus chapel, Charles would construct the first permanent fortification in the city, doing so on that same island. Lambert I of Leuven, Count of Leuven gained the County of Brussels around 1000 by marrying Charles daughter, as it grew to a population of around 30,000, the surrounding marshes were drained to allow for further expansion. The Counts of Leuven became Dukes of Brabant at about this time, in the 13th century, the city got its first walls. After the construction of the city walls in the early 13th century, to let the city expand, a second set of walls was erected between 1356 and 1383. Today, traces of it can still be seen, mostly because the small ring, Brabant had lost its independence, but Brussels became the Princely Capital of the prosperous Low Countries, and flourished. In 1516 Charles V, who had been heir of the Low Countries since 1506, was declared King of Spain in St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral in Brussels. Upon the death of his grandfather, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 and it was in the Palace complex at Coudenberg that Charles V abdicated in 1555. This impressive palace, famous all over Europe, had expanded since it had first become the seat of the Dukes of Brabant. In 1695, during the Nine Years War, King Louis XIV of France sent troops to bombard Brussels with artillery, together with the resulting fire, it was the most destructive event in the entire history of Brussels
6.
Pieter Coecke van Aelst
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Pieter Coecke van Aelst or Pieter Coecke van Aelst the Elder was a Flemish painter, sculptor, architect, author and designer of woodcuts, stained glass and tapestries. His principal subjects were Christian religious themes and he worked in Antwerp and Brussels and was appointed court painter to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Coecke van Aelst was a polyglot and he published translations of Ancient Roman and modern Italian architectural treatises into Flemish, French and German. These publications played a role in spreading Renaissance ideas to the Low Countries. They contributed to the transition in Northern Europe from the late Gothic style then prevalent towards a modern antique-oriented architecture, Pieter Coecke van Aelst was the son of the Deputy Mayor of Aalst. The early Flemish biographer Karel van Mander wrote in his Schilder-boeck published in 1604 that Coecke van Aelst studied under Bernard van Orley, there are no documents that prove this apprenticeship but there are strong stylistic similarities between the styles of the two artists. According to Karel van Mander Pieter Coecke van Aelst later studied in Italy where in Rome he made drawings of sculpture and architecture, although there is no firm evidence that Coecke van Aelst travelled to Italy, stylistic evidence supports the notion that he travelled to Italy. The Italian influence could, however, also be attributed to the fact that Raphael’s tapestry cartoons were available in Brussels, but Coecke van Aelst clearly also knew Raphael’s Triumph of Galatea fresco, which he could only have seen in Italy. Pieter Coecke van Aelst married twice and he married his first wife Anna van Dornicke in 1525 shortly after his move to Antwerp. Anna was the daughter of the Antwerp painter Jan Mertens van Dornicke and his father in law may have been his teacher and Coecke van Aelst took over his father-in-laws workshop after the latters death in 1527. There were two children from this first marriage, Michiel and Pieter II, Coecke van Aelst is recorded joining the local Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp in 1527. In 1533, he travelled to Constantinople where he stayed for one year in an attempt to persuade the Turkish sultan to give him tapestry commissions and this mission failed to generate any commissions from the sultan. Coecke made many drawings during his stay in Turkey including of the buildings, people and he seems to have retained from this trip an abiding interest in the accurate rendering of nature that gave his tapestries an added dimension. The giant made its premiere many years later in 1549 at the occasion of the Joyous entry into Antwerp of Prince Philip, the giant became a regular fixture in public processions in Antwerp until the 20th century. In the year 1537 Coecke van Aelst was elected dean of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke and he also received a stipend from the Antwerp city government. Around this time Coecke van Aelst received major commissions for the design of windows including for the Antwerp Cathedral. In the 1530s Coecke van Aelsts friend, the important painter Joos van Cleve died, around 1538-1539 Coecke van Aelst married for the second time. His second wife Mayken Verhulst was originally from Mechelen and a painter of miniatures, the couple had three children, two daughters called Katelijne and Maria and a son named Pauwel
7.
Karel van Mander
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Karel van Mander or Carel van Mander I was a Flemish painter, poet, art historian and art theoretician, who established himself in the Dutch Republic in the latter part of his life. He is mainly remembered as a biographer of Early Netherlandish painters, as an artist and art theoretician he played a significant role in the spread and development of Northern Mannerism in the Dutch Republic. It is not certain who wrote this sketch and various candidates have been proposed. Most recently it has argued that it was written by his son Karel van Mander the Younger. His son would have relied on information that Karel van Mander had written himself as well as on his own recollections. The information in the sketch is not entirely reliable but is still regarded as the best source of information on van Manders life. Van Mander was born into a family in Meulebeke, in the County of Flanders. He studied under Lucas de Heere in Ghent, and in 1568-1569 under Pieter Vlerick in Kortrijk, the next five years he devoted to the writing of religious plays for which he also painted the scenery. Then followed three years in Rome and his biographical sketch refers to van Mander as the discoverer of caves in Rome. This may be a reference to the Catacombs of Rome although the meaning of the reference is unclear. In Rome he may also have come into contact with fellow Fleming Bartholomeus Spranger and his patrons in Rome included several cardinals. On his return journey he passed through Vienna, where, together with Spranger, van Mander settled in Meulebeke in 1578 where he was active as a painter and writer. He married an 18-year-old local girl, with whom he had a son, in 1580 he left for Kortrijk due to religious troubles caused by Catholic zealots in Meulebeke. Karel van Mander had at some point become a Mennonite and was therefore a target of these zealots. In Kortrijk he got a commission for an altar piece, in Kortrijk another son was born. He left Kortrijk for Bruges in 1582 because of an outbreak of the plague, in Bruges, he worked with the painter Paul Weyts. Here he worked for 20 years on a commission by the Haarlem city fathers to inventory their art collection, the city of Haarlem had confiscated all Catholic religious art after the satisfactie van Haarlem, which gave Catholics equal rights to Protestants, had been overturned in 1578. Van Mander used his work on the commission in his Schilder-boeck, while in Haarlem he continued to paint, concentrating his energy on his favourite genre, historical allegories
8.
Landscape painting
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In other works, landscape backgrounds for figures can still form an important part of the work. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather is often an element of the composition, detailed landscapes as a distinct subject are not found in all artistic traditions, and develop when there is already a sophisticated tradition of representing other subjects. The two main traditions spring from Western painting and Chinese art, going well over a thousand years in both cases. Landscape views in art may be imaginary, or copied from reality with varying degrees of accuracy. If the primary purpose of a picture is to depict an actual, specific place, especially including buildings prominently, within a few decades it was used to describe vistas in poetry, and eventually as a term for real views. However the cognate term landscaef or landskipe for a patch of land had existed in Old English. The earliest pure landscapes with no figures are frescos from Minoan Greece of around 1500 BCE. The frescos from the Tomb of Nebamun, now in the British Museum, are a famous example. These were frequently used, as in the illustrated, to bridge the gap between a foreground scene with figures and a distant panoramic vista, a persistent problem for landscape artists. The Chinese style generally showed only a distant view, or used dead ground or mist to avoid that difficulty, aesthetic theories in both regions gave the highest status to the works seen to require the most imagination from the artist. They were often also poets whose lines and images illustrated each other, a revival in interest in nature initially mainly manifested itself in depictions of small gardens such as the Hortus Conclusus or those in millefleur tapestries. The frescos of figures at work or play in front of a background of trees in the Palace of the Popes. Several frescos of gardens have survived from Roman houses like the Villa of Livia, a particular advance is shown in the less well-known Turin-Milan Hours, now largely destroyed by fire, whose developments were reflected in Early Netherlandish painting for the rest of the century. Landscape backgrounds for various types of painting became prominent and skilful during the 15th century. The Italian development of a system of graphical perspective was now known all over Europe. Indeed, certain styles were so popular that they became formulas that could be copied again and again, after the publication of the Small Landscapes, landscape artists in the Low Countries either continued with the world landscape or followed the new mode presented by the Small Landscapes. The popularity of landscape scenes can be seen in the success of the painter Frans Post. Salvator Rosa gave picturesque excitement to his landscapes by showing wilder Southern Italian country, there are different styles and periods, and subgenres of marine and animal painting, as well as a distinct style of Italianate landscape
9.
Gillis van Coninxloo
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Gillis van Coninxloo was a Flemish painter of landscapes who played an important role in the development of Northern landscape art at the turn of the 17th century. He spent the last 20 years of his life abroad, first in Germany and he was born in Antwerp and studied under Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Lenaert Kroes and Gillis Mostaert. He travelled in France after completing his training and he became a member of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1570 and worked in Antwerp until 1585 when Antwerp fell to the Spanish. He left first for Middelburg and then in 1587 for Frankenthal where he was active until 1595 and he then moved to Amsterdam where he died in 1607. He had many pupils including Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Govert Govertsz van Arnhem, Willem van den Bundel, Gillis van Coninxloo III, Jonas van Merle, Hercules Seghers, Coninxloo ranks as one of the most important Flemish landscape painters of around the turn of the 17th century. He exercised an influence on Jan Brueghel the Elder, Pieter Schoubroeck, Roelandt Savery. His early landscapes were often Northern Mannerist versions of the world landscape type. This painting achieves great intensity and atmospheric quality through its fine shades of brown and green, during his stay in Frankenthal from 1588 to 1595, he influenced several better known Flemish émigré landscape painters, who are now collectively referred to as the Frankenthal School. The early 17th century art historian Karel van Mander wrote about Coninxloo in his Schilder-boeck, some of his paintings are, The Judgment of Midas Latona Landscape with Venus and Adonis Landscape with Duck Hunters Vlieghe, H. Flemish art and architecture, 1585-1700. Yale University Press Pelican history of art
10.
Guild of Saint Luke
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The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the saint of artists. One of the most famous such organizations was founded in Antwerp and it continued to function until 1795, although by then it had lost its monopoly and therefore most of its power. In most cities, including Antwerp, the government had given the Guild the power to regulate defined types of trade within the city. Guild membership, as a master, was required for an artist to take on apprentices or to sell paintings to the public. Similar rules existed in Delft, where members could sell paintings in the city or have a shop. The guild of Saint Luke not only represented painters, sculptors, and other artists, but also—especially in the seventeenth century—dealers, amateurs. In traditional guild structures, house-painters and decorators were often in the same guild, however, as artists formed under their own specific guild of St. Luke, particularly in the Netherlands, distinctions were increasingly made. In general, guilds also made judgments on disputes between artists and other artists or their clients, in such ways, it controlled the economic career of an artist working in a specific city, while in different cities they were wholly independent and often competitive against each other. Although it did not become an artistic center until the sixteenth century, Antwerp was one of, if not the first. It is first mentioned in 1382, and was given privileges by the city in 1442. The registers, or Liggeren, from the guild exist, cataloging when artists became masters, who the dean for each year was, what their specialities were, and the names of any students. Perhaps because of this link, for a period they had a rule that all miniatures needed a tiny mark to identify the artist, only under special privileges, such as court artist, could an artist effectively practice their craft without holding membership in the guild. Membership also allowed members to sell works at the guild-owned showroom, Antwerp, for example, opened a market stall for selling paintings in front of the cathedral in 1460, and Bruges followed in 1482. Guilds of St. Luke in the Dutch Republic began to reinvent themselves as cities there changed over to Protestant rule, many St. Luke guilds reissued charters to protect the interests of local painters from the influx of southern talent from places like Antwerp and Bruges. Many cities in the republic became more important artistic centres in the late sixteenth. Amsterdam was the first city to reissue a St. Lukes charter after the reformation in 1579, and it included painters, sculptors, engravers, for example, Gouda, Rotterdam, and Delft, all founded guilds between 1609 and 1611. On the other hand, these distinctions did not take effect at that time in Amsterdam or Haarlem, in the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, however, a strict hierarchy was attempted in 1631 with panel painters at the top, though this hierarchy was eventually rejected
11.
Frans Snyders
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Frans Snyders or Frans Snijders was a Flemish painter of animals, hunting scenes, market scenes and still lifes. He was one of the earliest specialist animaliers and he is credited with initiating a wide variety of new still-life and he was a regular collaborator with leading Antwerp painters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens. Snyders was born in Antwerp as the son of Jan Snijders, according to legend the famous 16th century painter Frans Floris squandered his fortune in the inn. His brother Michiel also became a painter but no works of him are known, Snyders was recorded as a student of Pieter Brueghel the Younger in 1593, and subsequently trained with Hendrick van Balen, who was the first master of Anthony van Dyck. Snyders became a master of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1602 and he travelled to Italy in 1608-9 where he first resided in Rome. The artist subsequently traveled from Rome to Milan, Jan Brueghel the Elder had introduced him there by letter to the famous art collector Cardinal Borromeo. Brueghel asked Snyders to paint a copy after a portrait by Titian in the Borromeo collection and this is regarded as evidence that Snyders was a skilled figure painter before he turned his attention to still life painting. Snyders had returned to Antwerp in the spring of 1609, in 1611 he married Margaretha, the sister of Cornelis de Vos and Paul de Vos, two leading painters in Antwerp. His collaboration with Rubens started in the 1610s, Snyders had many patrons including the Ghent Bishop Antonius Triest who commissioned four paintings of market scenes around 1615. He was a friend of van Dyck who painted Snyders and his more than once. Snyders was commercially successful and was able to purchase a house on the high-end Keizerstraat in Antwerp, in 1628 he became the dean of the Guild of Saint Luke. In the period 1636-1638 he was one of the Antwerp artists who assisted Rubens in a commission for decorations for the hunting pavilion Torre de la Parada of Philip IV of Spain. The two artists worked together on decorations for the Royal Alcazar of Madrid and the royal Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid. Snyders painted about 60 hunting paintings and animal pieces after designs by Rubens, in 1639 Rubens and Snyders received a follow-up commission for an additional 18 paintings for the hunting pavilion. After Peter Paul Rubens death Snyders acted as one of the appraisers of the inventory of Rubens collection, in the years 1641 and 1642 Snyders traveled with other artists to the Dutch Republic. In 1646 Snyders was probably in Breda working on a commission, Snyders became a widower in 1647. He died himself on 19 August 1657 in Antwerp and he died childless and bequeathed his fortune to his sister, a beguine. His pupils are believed to have included Nicasius Bernaerts, Peter van Boucle, Juriaen Jacobsze, Jan Roos, Jan Fyt was a student, and then assistant of Snyders from 1629
12.
Andries Daniels
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Andries Daniels was a Flemish painter of flower still lifes who played an important role in the development of the genre of garland paintings Antwerp. Little is known about his life, in 1599 he is registered at the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as a pupil of Pieter Brueghel the Younger. He may have participated in copying works of Pieter Brueghel the Elder during his period of apprenticeship, in 1602 he was registered as a master of the Guild. He executed a joint will with his wife Jozijnke van der Hoerst on 25 July 1640, Daniels is known as a painter of still lifes, in particular still lifes of flowers in flamboyant vases, and flower garlands. Not many of his works are known and only in the 1950s-1960s was he rediscovered, Andries Daniels work resembles the paintings of Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder to whom previously they were attributed frequently. The composition, colour and lighting, however, call to mind the work of Jan Brueghel the Elder, Daniels played a role in the development of the genre of garland paintings. They typically show a flower garland around an image or portrait. This genre was inspired by the cult of veneration and devotion to Mary prevalent at the Habsburg court, Garland paintings were usually collaborations between a still life and a figure painter. Together with Frans Francken, he developed the genre of garland paintings, creating many special forms. An example of a garland painting he made with Jacob Jordaens is the Garland of Flowers with Virgin. Media related to Andries Daniels at Wikimedia Commons
13.
Antwerp
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Antwerp is a city in Belgium, the capital of Antwerp province in the region of Flanders. With a population of 510,610, it is the most populous city proper in Belgium and its metropolitan area houses around 1,200,000 people, which is second behind Brussels. Antwerp is on the River Scheldt, linked to the North Sea by the Westerschelde estuary, the Port of Antwerp is one of the biggest in the world, ranking second in Europe and within the top 20 globally. Antwerp has long been an important city in the Low Countries, the inhabitants of Antwerp are nicknamed Sinjoren, after the Spanish honorific señor or French seigneur, lord, referring to the Spanish noblemen who ruled the city in the 17th century. The city hosted the 1920 Summer Olympics, according to folklore, notably celebrated by a statue in front of the town hall, the city got its name from a legend about a giant called Antigoon who lived near the Scheldt river. He exacted a toll from passing boatmen, and for those who refused, he severed one of their hands, eventually the giant was killed by a young hero named Silvius Brabo, who cut off the giants own hand and flung it into the river. Hence the name Antwerpen, from Dutch hand werpen, akin to Old English hand and wearpan, a longstanding theory is that the name originated in the Gallo-Roman period and comes from the Latin antverpia. Antverpia would come from Ante Verpia, indicating land that forms by deposition in the curve of a river. Note that the river Scheldt, before a period between 600 and 750, followed a different track. This must have coincided roughly with the current ringway south of the city, however, many historians think it unlikely that there was a large settlement which would be named Antverpia, but more something like an outpost with a river crossing. However, John Lothrop Motley argues, and so do a lot of Dutch etymologists and historians, aan t werp is also possible. This warp is a hill or a river deposit, high enough to remain dry at high tide. Another word for werp is pol hence polders, historical Antwerp allegedly had its origins in a Gallo-Roman vicus. Excavations carried out in the oldest section near the Scheldt, 1952–1961, produced pottery shards, the earliest mention of Antwerp dates from the 4th century. In the 4th century, Antwerp was first named, having been settled by the Germanic Franks, the name was reputed to have been derived from anda and werpum. The Merovingian Antwerp was evangelized by Saint Amand in the 7th century, at the end of the 10th century, the Scheldt became the boundary of the Holy Roman Empire. Antwerp became a margraviate in 980, by the German emperor Otto I, in the 11th century Godfrey of Bouillon was for some years known as the marquis of Antwerp. In the 12th century, Norbert of Xanten established a community of his Premonstratensian canons at St. Michaels Abbey at Caloes
14.
Genre art
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Genre art is the pictorial representation in any of various media of scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. Such representations may be realistic, imagined, or romanticized by the artist, some variations of the term genre art specify the medium or type of visual work, as in genre painting, genre prints, genre photographs, and so on. Rather confusingly, the meaning of genre, covering any particular combination of an artistic medium. Painting was divided into a hierarchy of genres, with painting at the top, as the most difficult and therefore prestigious. But history paintings are a genre in painting, not genre works, the following concentrates on painting, but genre motifs were also extremely popular in many forms of the decorative arts, especially from the Rococo of the early 18th century onwards. Single figures or small groups decorated a huge variety of such as porcelain, furniture, wallpaper. Genre painting, also called genre scene or petit genre, depicts aspects of life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. A work would often be considered as a genre work even if it could be shown that the artist had used a known member of his family. In this case it would depend on whether the work was likely to have intended by the artist to be perceived as a portrait—sometimes a subjective question. The depictions can be realistic, imagined, or romanticized by the artist, because of their familiar and frequently sentimental subject matter, genre paintings have often proven popular with the bourgeoisie, or middle class. Genre themes appear in all art traditions. These were part of a pattern of Mannerist inversion in Antwerp painting, giving low elements previously in the background of images prominent emphasis. The generally small scale of these paintings was appropriate for their display in the homes of middle class purchasers. Often the subject of a painting was based on a popular emblem from an Emblem book. The merry company showed a group of figures at a party, other common types of scenes showed markets or fairs, village festivities, or soldiers in camp. In Italy, a school of painting was stimulated by the arrival in Rome of the Dutch painter Pieter van Laer in 1625. He acquired the nickname Il Bamboccio and his followers were called the Bamboccianti, whose works would inspire Giacomo Ceruti, Antonio Cifrondi, jean-Baptiste Greuze and others painted detailed and rather sentimental groups or individual portraits of peasants that were to be influential on 19th-century painting. Spain had a tradition predating The Book of Good Love of social observation and commentary based on the Old Roman Latin tradition, practiced by many of its painters and illuminators
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Metropolitan Museum of Art
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially the Met, is located in New York City and is the largest art museum in the United States, and is among the most visited art museums in the world. Its permanent collection contains two million works, divided among seventeen curatorial departments. The main building, on the edge of Central Park along Manhattans Museum Mile, is by area one of the worlds largest art galleries. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains a collection of art, architecture. On March 18,2016, the museum opened the Met Breuer museum at Madison Avenue in the Upper East Side, it extends the museums modern, the Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, Indian, and Islamic art. The museum is home to collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, as well as antique weapons. Several notable interiors, ranging from first-century Rome through modern American design, are installed in its galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870. The founders included businessmen and financiers, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day and it opened on February 20,1872, and was originally located at 681 Fifth Avenue. The Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, the museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. A number of interiors, ranging from 1st century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Mets galleries. In addition to its permanent exhibitions, the Met organizes and hosts traveling shows throughout the year. The director of the museum is Thomas P. Campbell, a long-time curator and it was announced on February 28th,2017 that Campbell will be stepping down as the Mets director and CEO, effective June. On March 1st,2017 the BBC reported that Daniel Weiss shall be the acting CEO until a replacement is found, Beginning in the late 19th century, the Met started to acquire ancient art and artifacts from the Near East. From a few tablets and seals, the Mets collection of Near Eastern art has grown to more than 7,000 pieces. The highlights of the include a set of monumental stone lamassu, or guardian figures. The Mets Department of Arms and Armor is one of the museums most popular collections. Among the collections 14,000 objects are many pieces made for and used by kings and princes, including armor belonging to Henry VIII of England, Henry II of France, Rockefeller donated his more than 3, 000-piece collection to the museum. The Mets Asian department holds a collection of Asian art, of more than 35,000 pieces, the collection dates back almost to the founding of the museum, many of the philanthropists who made the earliest gifts to the museum included Asian art in their collections
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Whitsun
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In England it took on some characteristics of Beltane, which originated from the pagan celebration of Summers Day, the beginning of the summer half-year, in Europe. Whit Monday, the day after Whitsun, remained a holiday in the UK until 1978 when the holiday was replaced with the fixed Spring Bank Holiday in late May. Whit was the occasion for varied forms of celebration, in the North West of England, church and chapel parades called Whit Walks still take place at this time. Typically, the parades include brass bands and choirs, girls attending are dressed in white, other customs such as Morris dancing were associated with Whitsun, although in most cases they have been transferred to the Spring bank holiday. Whaddon, Cambridgeshire has its own Whitsun tradition of singing a song around the village before. According to one interpretation, the name derives from the garments worn by catechumens. Moreover, in England white vestments, rather than the usual red, were traditional for the day. A different tradition is that of the women of the parish all coming to church or chapel in new white dresses on that day. Thus, he thought the root of the word was wit, the following day is Whit Monday, a name coined to supersede the form Monday in Whitsun-week used by John Wycliffe and others. The week following Whit Sunday is known as Whitsuntide or Whit week, as the first holiday of the summer, Whitsun was one of the favourite times in the traditional calendar and Whit Sunday, or the following week, was a time for celebration. This took the form of fêtes, fairs, pageants and parades with Whitsun ales and Morris dancing in the south of England and Whit walks and wakes in the north. To be cudgelld for. On Whit Tuesday, in the morning, and in the afternoon six pairs of buckskin gloves to be wrestled for. In Manchester during the 17th century the Kersal Moor Whit races were the event of the year when large numbers of people turned the area into a giant fairground for several days. With the coming of industrialisation it became convenient to close down whole towns for a week in order to clean and maintain the machinery in the mills, the week of closure, or wakes week, was often held at Whitsuntide. Whit Monday was officially recognised as a holiday in the UK in 1871. The Whitsun Weddings is a poem and the title of a collection by Philip Larkin, Whitsunday in Kirchstetten is a poem by W. H. Auden from his collection About the House. Mentioned in Thomas Pynchons Gravitys Rainbow, section 2,20, le Morte DArthur by Thomas Malory has the Knights of the Round Table witness a divine vision of the Holy Grail on a Whitsunday, prompting their quest to find its true location. In Shakespeares Winters Tale, Act 4, Scene 4, Perdita imagines that she plays as I have seen them do in Whitsun pastorals, several chapters of Jeff Wheelers Muirwood Trilogy revolve around Whitsunday and its significance and impact on Muirwoods inhabitants
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National Gallery in Prague
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The National Gallery in Prague is a state-owned art gallery in Prague, which manages the largest collection of art in the Czech Republic. The collections of the gallery are not housed in a single building, the largest of the gallery sites is the Veletržní Palác, which houses the National Gallerys collection of modern art. It is one the largest museums in Central Europe, the institution, which received the title Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts, established the Academy of Fine Arts and the Picture Gallery. In 1918 the Picture Gallery became a collection of newly formed Czechoslovakia. In 1995 a new gallery dedicated to modern art opened in the refurbished Veletržní Palác and it is one of the first and largest functionalism building in Prague, built in 1925-1928. St. Georges Convent was formerly used to display Art of the Middle Ages in Bohemia and Central Europe, Baroque art, and 19th-century art of Bohemia. Picasso, who has a room to himself in the gallery, has two self-portraits there, and two of his nudes in addition to more abstract work. Along with the Black Madonna House and the Museum Kampa, the Trade fair palace collection is one of the most notable collections of Czech Cubism in Prague and it houses the largest collection of National Gallery art. Since 2012 The Slav Epic has been on display here
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Pounce (art)
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Pouncing is an art technique used for transferring an image from one surface to another. It is similar to tracing, and is useful for creating copies of an outline to produce finished works. Pouncing has been a technique for centuries, used to create copies of portraits and other works that would be finished as oil paintings, engravings. The most common method involves laying semi-transparent paper over the original image and this pounced drawing made of pricked holes is laid over a new working surface. A powder such as chalk, graphite or pastel is forced through the holes to leave an outline on the surface below. The powder is applied by being placed into a bag of thin fabric such as cheesecloth. Calligraphy in black nastaliq script on a beige paper decorated with bird, the main text panel is bordered by a number of other verses in both diagonal and vertical registers forming a frame. The entire composition is pasted to a sheet of paper decorated with a pounced vegetal motif in green. Black chalk over pounce marks, traces of stylus, watermark of encircled Saint Anthonys cross, ink and color on paper, pounced for transfer. The original drawing, which has been reinforced in ink and wash by other hands, was used as the pattern for a number of copies, pounce marks on the outlines reveal that this copy was traced not from the original but from another copy. It was previously mounted on paper, which was cut out
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Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest)
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The Museum of Fine Arts is a museum in Heroes Square, Budapest, Hungary, facing the Palace of Art. It was built by the plans of Albert Schickedanz and Fülöp Herzog in an eclectic-neoclassical style, the museums collection is made up of international art, including all periods of European art, and comprises more than 100,000 pieces. The collection is made up of older additions such as those from Buda Castle, the Museums collection is made up of six departments, Egyptian, Antique, Old sculpture gallery, Old master paintings gallery, Modern collection, Graphics collection. The institution celebrated its centenary in 2006, on February 16,2015, the museum closed to the public for renovation. It is expected to reopen in March 2018, after three years of work, in the meantime, a selection of works are housed in the Hungarian National Gallery. The gallery holds the second largest collection of Egyptian art in central Europe and it comprises a number of collections bought together by Hungarian Egyptologist, Eduard Mahler, in the 1930s. Subsequent digs in Egypt have expanded the collection, some of the most interesting pieces are the painted mummy sarcophagi. The core of the collection was made up of pieces acquired from Paul Arndt, the exhibition mainly includes works from Ancient Greece and Rome. Most significant is the 3rd century marble statue called the Budapest dancer, the Cyprean and Mycenaean collection is also notable, also the ceramics and bronzes. The 3000 paintings in the offer an almost uninterrupted survey of the development of European painting from the 13th to the late 18th centuries. The core of the collection is constituted by the 700 paintings acquired from the Esterhazy estate, the collection is split up into Italian, German, Netherlandish, Flemish, French, English and Spanish art. The collections main section is devoted to pieces from the Middle Ages to the 17th century and it was based on the Italian collection of Karoly Pulszky and Istvan Ferenczys bronze collections. From the latter one of the most treasured works, the small equestrian by Leonardo da Vinci. A number of painted wooden sculptures feature in the German and Austrian section, the collection shows selected rotating exhibitions of its collection of 10,000 drawings and 100,000 prints originating mainly from the Esterhazy, Istvan Delhaes and Pal Majovsky acquisitions. All periods of European graphic art are represented, important pieces include two studies by Leonardo da Vinci for the Battle of Anghiari,15 drawings by Rembrandt,200 pieces by Goya, and French aquatints. The museums collection of 19th- and 20th-century art is less significant than those found in other departments, the bulk of the painting is from the Biedermeier period and French art. From the latter are representatives of the Romantic period, the Barbizon school, there is a large collection of sculptures by Auguste Rodin and Constantin Meunier. Hungarian artist, Victor Vasarely, donated a significant collection of his works to the gallery and these have found a permanent home outside the walls of the gallery at the Zichy mansion in Obuda
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Hermitage Museum
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The State Hermitage Museum is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums in the world, it was founded in 1754 by Catherine the Great and has open to the public since 1852. Its collections, of only a small part is on permanent display. The collections occupy a complex of six historic buildings along Palace Embankment, including the Winter Palace. Apart from them, the Menshikov Palace, Museum of Porcelain, Storage Facility at Staraya Derevnya, the museum has several exhibition centers abroad. The Hermitage is a state property. Since July 1992, the director of the museum has been Mikhail Piotrovsky, of the six buildings in the main museum complex, five, namely the Winter Palace, Small Hermitage, Old Hermitage, New Hermitage and Hermitage Theatre, are open to the public. The entrance ticket for foreign tourists more than the fee paid by citizens of Russia. However, entrance is free of charge the first Thursday of every month for all visitors, the museum is closed on Mondays. The entrance for visitors is located in the Winter Palace. A hermitage is the dwelling of a hermit or recluse, the word derives from Old French hermit, ermit hermit, recluse, from Late Latin eremita, from Greek eremites, literally people who live alone, which is in turn derived from ἐρημός, desert. Originally, the building housing the collection was the Small Hermitage. Today, the Hermitage Museum encompasses many buildings on the Palace Embankment, apart from the Small Hermitage, the museum now also includes the Old Hermitage, the New Hermitage, the Hermitage Theatre, and the Winter Palace, the former main residence of the Russian tsars. In recent years, the Hermitage has expanded to the General Staff Building on the Palace Square facing the Winter Palace, the Western European Art collection includes European paintings, sculpture, and applied art from the 13th to the 20th centuries. It is displayed, in about 120 rooms, on the first, drawings and prints are displayed in temporary exhibitions. Since 1940, the Egyptian collection, dating back to 1852 and it serves as a passage to the exhibition of Classical Antiquities. A modest collection of the culture of Ancient Mesopotamia, including a number of Assyrian reliefs from Babylon, Dur-Sharrukin, the collection of Classical Antiquities occupies most of the ground floor of the Old and New Hermitage buildings. Its floor is made of a marble mosaic imitating ancient tradition, while the stucco walls
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Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp
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The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp is a museum in Antwerp, Belgium, founded in 1810, houses a collection of paintings, sculptures and drawings from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries. This collection is representative of the production and the taste of art enthusiasts in Antwerp, Belgium. The museum is closed for renovation until the end of 2017, the neoclassical building housing the collection is one of the primary landmarks of the Zuid district of Antwerp. The majestic building was designed by Jacob Winders and Frans van Dijk, built beginning in 1884, opened in 1890, the building stands in gardens bounded by the Leopold de Waalplaats, the Schildersstraat, the Plaatsnijdersstraat, and the Beeldhouwersstraat. The museums collection began with the artworks owned by the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke, when the guild disbanded, its gallery of paintings went to the Academy of Fine Arts, which had been founded in 1663 with the involvement of David Teniers. The gallery had works by Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, during French occupations in 1794 and 1796, art was looted from churches and other buildings in Antwerp, the pieces that were later recovered became part of the museums collection. By 1817 the museum listed 127 items in its catalogue, mostly dating to the mid-16th and 17th centuries, william I of the Netherlands helped the museum in various ways. In 1823 he donated three paintings, including a work by Titian—Pope Alexander IV presents Jacopo Pesaro to Saint Peter—which became the museums first foreign piece. He decreed a grant of 20,000 guilders to build the collections contemporary art in 1827, only in 1873 did the museum begin to acquire living artists works. A significant bequest from a mayor of Antwerp, Florent van Ertborn. Van Ertborn had collected Early Netherlandish art at a time when it was out of favour and these works included Jan van Eycks Saint Barbara and Madonna at the Fountain and Rogier van der Weydens Portrait of Philip de Croy and the Seven Sacraments Altarpiece. Also in the bequest were paintings by Hans Memling, Dieric Bouts, Joachim Patinir, Quinten Massys, Jean Fouquet, Simone Martini, Antonello da Messina, at the end of 2011 the museum closed to the public for major renovations
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Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn
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The Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, or LVR-LandesMuseum Bonn, is a museum in Bonn, Germany, run by the Rhineland Landscape Association. It is one of the oldest museums in the country, in 2003 it completed an extensive renovation. The museum has a number of ancient busts and figures dating back to Roman times. An early forerunner, the Museum of Antiquities, was founded in 1820 by decree of the Prussian state chancellor Karl August von Hardenberg, a more direct ancestor, the Provincial Museum, was founded in 1874, though it did not get its own building until 1893. This was enlarged in 1907, but the section was destroyed during World War II. The museum was renovated from 1998 to 2003, allowing a new presentation of the exhibits. The Stone Age Area was redesigned in 2010, the archaeological exhibits are divided into historical themes, e. g. From the Gods to God, The Rhineland and the World, works of art are also displayed throughout the exhibition, with masterpieces next to simple tools and religious works beside everyday objects. The museum also owns a collection of prints and photographs, the Stone Age Area features the original skeleton of a neanderthal, and displays the evolution of humanity from the development of upright posture to the early Celtic cultures of Europe. The Jugend im Museum society offers holidays in the museum for children, the museum has a cinema which mostly shows subtitled foreign films, sometimes for school classes. Some artists whose works are represented in Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn include, Bernd Schwarzer Official site, including history
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Lier, Belgium
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Lier is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Antwerp. The municipality comprises the city of Lier itself and the village of Koningshooikt, as of January 1,2010 Lier had a total population of 33,930. The total area is 49.70 km² which gives a density of 669 inhabitants per km². Lier is known for its beers, including Caves, its patron saint St. Gummarus and it is also home to Van Hool, one of the largest manufacturers of buses and coaches. There are two football clubs Lierse S. K. and K. Lyra T. S. V. are based in Lier. Lier was in 1496 the scene of a significant marriage in European history, the son born out of this marriage, Charles V, would later rule over the combined Austrian & Spanish empires. King Christian II of Denmark and his wife Isabella lived in Lier from 1523 after he had driven out of Denmark by the nobility. He was waiting there in vain, hoping to get support from his brother in law. He tried to regain the throne of Denmark but was taken prisoner, Isabella died in 1526 at the castle of Zwijnaarde, another Flemish city. The LIERRE post-office opened before 1830 and it used a postal code 74, and 218 with points before 1874. KONINGSHOYCKT opened on 5 March 1907, the Beguinage and St. Margarite Church, 17th century. The St. Gummarus Church, gothic architecture, 14th century, under high altar is grave of Olav Engelbrektsson, the Stedelijk Museum Wuyts-Van Campen en Baron Caroly, a fine arts museum. The Town hall, rococo architecture, 18th century, the Saint-Peters Chapel The Zimmertoren is a unique clock built in the 1930s. Lier is a nightlife center in Flanders. Its clubs, such as La Rocca, are known throughout the region. There are over 70 bars within the city boundaries, the ones around the Zimmerplein being the most lively during summer, in 2004, Lier was the host for the third episode of Fata Morgana, the TV-show in which Belgian celebrities gave a city or town several challenges. The theme was Lier 2020 and the succeeded in completing all challenges
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Groeningemuseum
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The Groeningemuseum is a municipal museum in Bruges, Belgium, built on the site of the medieval Eekhout Abbey. It houses a comprehensive survey of six centuries of Flemish and Belgian painting, hippolytus Fernand Khnopff Secret-Reflet René Magritte LAttentat van Uffelen, Chris. Contemporary Museums - Architecture, History, Collections, media related to Groeningemuseum at Wikimedia Commons Museum website
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Bruges
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Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country. The area of the whole city amounts to more than 13,840 hectares, including 1,075 hectares off the coast, the historic city centre is a prominent World Heritage Site of UNESCO. It is oval and about 430 hectares in size, the citys total population is 117,073, of whom around 20,000 live in the city centre. The metropolitan area, including the commuter zone, covers an area of 616 km2 and has a total of 255,844 inhabitants as of 1 January 2008. Along with a few other canal-based northern cities, such as Amsterdam and Stockholm, Bruges has a significant economic importance thanks to its port and was once one of the worlds chief commercial cities. Bruges is well known as the seat of the College of Europe, the name probably derives from the Old Dutch for bridge, brugga. Also compare Middle Dutch brucge, brugge, and modern Dutch bruggehoofd, the form brugghe would be a southern Dutch variant. The Dutch word and the English bridge both derive from Proto-Germanic *brugjō-, Bruges was a location of coastal settlement during prehistory. This Bronze Age and Iron Age settlement is unrelated to medieval city development, in the Bruges area, the first fortifications were built after Julius Caesars conquest of the Menapii in the first century BC, to protect the coastal area against pirates. The Franks took over the region from the Gallo-Romans around the 4th century. The Viking incursions of the century prompted Count Baldwin I of Flanders to reinforce the Roman fortifications, trade soon resumed with England. Bruges received its city charter on 27 July 1128, and new walls and canals were built, in 1089 Bruges became the capital of the County of Flanders. Since about 1050, gradual silting had caused the city to lose its access to the sea. A storm in 1134, however, re-established this access, through the creation of a channel at the Zwin. The new sea arm stretched all the way to Damme, a city became the commercial outpost for Bruges. Bruges had a location at the crossroads of the northern Hanseatic League trade. They developed, or borrowed from Italy, new forms of merchant capitalism, whereby several merchants would share the risks and profits and they employed new forms of economic exchange, including bills of exchange and letters of credit. The city eagerly welcomed foreign traders, most notably the Portuguese traders selling pepper and other spices, the citys entrepreneurs reached out to make economic colonies of England and Scotlands wool-producing districts
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Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor
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Rudolf II was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and Croatia, King of Bohemia and Archduke of Austria. He was a member of the House of Habsburg, Rudolf was born in Vienna on 18 July 1552. Rudolf spent eight years, from age 11 to 19, in Spain. Rudolf would remain for the rest of his reserved, secretive. He suffered from bouts of melancholy, which was common in the Habsburg line. These became worse with age, and were manifested by a withdrawal from the world, like his contemporary, Elizabeth I of England, Rudolf dangled himself as a prize in a string of diplomatic negotiations for marriages, but never in fact married. It has been proposed by A. L. Rowse that he was homosexual, during his periods of self-imposed isolation, Rudolf reportedly had affairs with his court chamberlain, Wolfgang von Rumpf, and a series of valets. One of these, Philip Lang, ruled him for years and was hated by those seeking favour with the emperor, in addition, Rudolf was known to have had a succession of affairs with women, some of whom claimed to have been impregnated by him. He had several children with his mistress Catherina Strada. Their eldest son, Don Julius Caesar dAustria, was born between 1584 and 1586 and received an education and opportunities for political and social prominence from his father. In 1607, Rudolf sent Julius to live at Český Krumlov in Bohemia castle, Julius lived at Český Krumlov when in 1608 he reportedly abused and murdered the daughter of a local barber, who had been living in the castle, and then disfigured her body. Rudolf condemned his sons act and suggested that he should be imprisoned for the rest of his life, however, Julius died in 1609 after showing signs of schizophrenia, refusing to bathe, and living in squalor, his death was apparently caused by an ulcer that ruptured. Many artworks commissioned by Rudolf are unusually erotic, the emperor was the subject of a whispering campaign by his enemies in his family and the Catholic Church in the years before he was deposed. Sexual allegations may well have formed a part of the campaign against him, historians have traditionally blamed Rudolfs preoccupation with the arts, occult sciences, and other personal interests as the reason for the political disasters of his reign. Although raised in his uncles Catholic court in Spain, Rudolf was tolerant of Protestantism and he largely withdrew from Catholic observances, even in death denying last sacramental rites. He had little attachment to Protestants either, except as counter-weight to repressive Papal policies and he put his primary support behind conciliarists, irenicists, and humanists. His conflict with the Ottoman Empire was the cause of his undoing. Unwilling to compromise with the Turks, and stubbornly determined that he could all of Christendom with a new Crusade, he started a long
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Farnese collection
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The Farnese Collection is one of the premier collections of artistic items from Greco-Roman Antiquity. It includes some of the most influential works, including the sculptures that were part of the Farnese Marbles. The works are now displayed in the Naples National Archaeological Museum in Naples, the items in the collection were acquired or requisitioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who became Pope Paul III. Classical artworks were routinely uncovered in Roman lands, and during the Renaissance had become much desired, many were family heirlooms of prominent families in Rome. Alessandro purchased the Sassi and Bernardino Fabio collections, confiscated the Colonna collection, other works were bought in the antiques market, including works that were appearing as part of excavations and construction throughout the city. Michelangelo had designed internal niches to display statuary in the massive Palazzo Farnese in Rome, the Farnese collection was further enlarged by the Popes nephew, another Cardinal Alessandro, by the purchase of the Del Bufalo and Cesarini collections. It also included the left in 1587 by Margaret of Parma. She also possessed a collection of engraved gems, which formerly belonged to Lorenzo dei Medici, including the Farnese Cup. The Farnese’s trusted collector and antiquarian Fulvio Orsini aided in shopping for other works and on his death, left his collection of gems, coins, inside ancient statues were arranged according to themes within the Farnese Palace. In the Gran Salone, the Sala degli Imperatori, the Sala dei Filosofi, the Annibale Carracci ceiling frescoes depicting the The Loves of the Gods were painted not only to celebrate a wedding, but also commented on statuary in the niches below the frescoes. He in turn decided to move the Parmesan collections to Naples and his son Ferdinand IV of Naples brought the Roman collections to Naples. This occurred in 1787, despite the opposition of the Papacy. Many of the sculptures were restored by Carlo Albacini. The Farnese collections are exhibited together, although arranged by themes. Some have been moved to the Capodimonte Museum, residual sculptures from the Farnese collection were acquired by the British Museum in 1864. Numbering 10 items in total, they are displayed in galleries throughout the museum, including the Enlightenment Gallery. The collection contains many copies of ancient Greek originals, and provides a review of classic Roman sculpture
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Ambrosius Brueghel
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Ambrosius Brueghel was a Flemish painter from the famous Brueghel family of artists. Less prolific and less well-known than a number of his members, his oeuvre is not very well understood and is believed to comprise Baroque still lifes. Ambrosius Brueghel was born in Antwerp as the son of Jan Brueghel the Elder and his grandfather was one of the leading painters in Antwerp and the son of the famous Renaissance painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder. His older -brother Jan Brueghel the Younger was also a painter and his sister Anna married the prominent court painter David Teniers the Younger in 1637. Ambrosius is known to have collaborated with his brother-in-law on some landscapes with genre scenes and his sister Paschasia married the painter Hieronymous van Kessel the Younger. Another sister Catharina married the painter Jan Baptist Borrekens, as his father died when Ambrosius was only seven years old, he was placed under the guardianship of prominent painters Hendrick van Balen, Cornelis Schut and Pieter de Jode the Elder. Hendrick van Balen fostered his artistic training and it is possible that Ambrosius trained with his brother Jan. Ambrosius is believed to have had plans to travel abroad after 10 September 1639 as he made a will on that date, the making of a will was customary at the time for persons who were about to embark on a long trip. Ambrosius Brueghel became a member of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1645, in 1649 he became a member of the chamber of rhetoric De Violieren. On 21 February of the year he married Anna Clara van Triest who was from a well-to-do family. The couple would have four children, the artist was well-respected in the community and was appointed wijkmeester of his district. In 1650, Ambrosius Brueghel visited his brother Jan in Paris and he served as deacon of the Guild in 1653,1665,1671 and 1673. Ambrosius Brueghels work has described as being in the same style as that of his father. The problem is only very few works have been attributed to this artist. Regularly still lifes have been attributed to Ambrosius Brueghel, but none of these attributions are firm, a vanitas still life discovered in 1966 of a large vase of flowers marked AB was attributed to Ambrosius but it is now given to Adriaen van Nieulandt. The only painting that has been attributed to the artist with some level of certainty is the Holy Virgin and they typically show a flower garland around a devotional image or portrait. This genre was inspired by the cult of veneration and devotion to Mary prevalent at the Habsburg court, landscapes by Ambrosius have been recorded in the estate of the family of his guardian Hendrick van Balen. The location of paintings is now unknown
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Jan Brueghel the Younger
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Jan Brueghel the Younger was a Flemish Baroque painter, and the son of Jan Brueghel the Elder. Brueghel was born and died in the 17th century in Antwerp and he was trained by his father and spent his career producing works in a similar style. Along with his brother Ambrosius, he produced landscapes, allegorical scenes, Brueghel also copied works by his father and sold them with his fathers signature. His work is distinguishable from that of his parent by being less well executed, Jan the Younger was traveling in Italy when his father died of cholera, and swiftly returned to take control of the Antwerp studio. After the death of his father he changed his signature from Brueghel to Breughel, the next year in 1626 he married Anna-Maria Janssens, daughter of Abraham Janssens. He soon established himself and was dean of the Guild of Saint Luke in 1630. That same year he was commissioned by the French court to paint Adam Cycle, in the following years, he also produced paintings for the Austrian court, and worked independently in Paris, before returning to Antwerp in 1657. He collaborated with a number of prominent artists including Rubens, Hendrick van Balen, Adriaen Stalbemt, Lucas Van Uden, David Teniers the Younger and his father-in-law Abraham Janssens. Jan the Youngers best works are his landscapes, either under his own name or made for other artists such as Hendrick van Balen as backgrounds. His pupils were his older sons Abraham, Philips and Jan Peeter, his nephew Jan van Kessel, Jan the Younger has fifteen paintings in National public collections in the United Kingdom
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David Teniers the Younger
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David Teniers the Younger was a Flemish artist born in Antwerp, the son of David Teniers the Elder. His son David Teniers III and his grandson David Teniers IV were also painters and his wife Anna, née Anna Breughel, was the daughter of Jan Brueghel the Elder and the granddaughter of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Through his father, he was influenced by Elsheimer and by Rubens. The influence of Adriaen Brouwer can be traced to the outset of his career, the only trace of personal relations having existed between Teniers and Rubens is the fact that the ward of the latter, Anne Breughel, the daughter of Jan Breughel, married Teniers in 1637. Admitted as a master in the Guild of St Luke in 1632, the Berlin Museum possesses a group of ladies and gentlemen dated 1630. No special signature positively distinguishes these first productions from those of his father, Dr. Bode, in a study of Brouwer and his works, expresses the opinion that Tenierss earliest pictures are those found under the signature Tenier. Tenier is a Flemish version of a thoroughly Walloon name, Taisnier which the grandfather, a mercer, brought with him when he came from Ath in 1558. His touch is of the rarest delicacy, his colour at once gay and he was little over thirty when the Antwerp guild of St. George enabled him to paint the picture which ultimately found its way to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg the Meeting of the Civic Guards. Correct to the minutest detail, yet striking in effect, the scene, under the rays of sunshine, displays an astonishing amount of acquired knowledge. Teniers was chosen by the council of Antwerp to preside over the Guild of Saint Luke in 1644. The Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, who had assumed the government of the Spanish Netherlands employed Teniers as a painter, with the title of ayuda de camara, Teniers moved to Brussels shortly after 1647. Immense sums were spent buying paintings for the archduke, a number of valuable works of Italian masters, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, came from Leopold Wilhelms gallery after having belonged to Charles I and the Duke of Buckingham. De Bie states that Teniers visited London, collecting pictures for the Duke of Fuensaldana, then acting as Leopold Wilhelms lieutenant in the Netherlands. Still more interesting is a canvas, now in the Munich Gallery, when Leopold Wilhelm returned to Vienna, Teniers appointment ended. Teniers nevertheless remained in favor with the new governor-general, Don Juan of Austria. The prince was his pupil, and de Bie tells us he painted the likeness of the painters son, in a petition to the king he reminded him that the honour of knighthood had been bestowed upon Rubens and van Dyck. The king at last declared his readiness to grant the request, the condition was not complied with, but it may perhaps account for his interest in founding an academy in Antwerp strictly limited to painters and sculptors. Teniers died in Brussels on 25 April 1690, the date is often wrongly given as 1694 or 1695
31.
Jan Pieter Brueghel
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Jan Pieter Brueghel or Jan Pieter Breughel was a Flemish Baroque painter specialised in flower still lifes. He was the son of Jan Brueghel the Younger and Anna-Maria Janssens and he joined the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1645 as wijnmeester. He died in Italy, after 1664, and is known for still lifes. He created many paintings on which he collaborated with other painters such as Erasmus Quellinus II who painted the cartouches while Brueghel painted the flower garlands. Notes Bibliography Jan Pieter Brueghel on Artnet Media related to Jan Pieter Breughel at Wikimedia Commons
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Abraham Brueghel
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Abraham Brueghel was a Flemish painter from the famous Brueghel family of artists. He emigrated at an age to Italy where he played an important role in the development of the style of decorative Baroque still lifes. Abraham was born in Antwerp, the son of Jan Brueghel the Younger, the grandson of Jan Brueghel the Elder, much of his artistic training came from his father Jan Brueghel the Younger, prolific painter and regular collaborator with Rubens. Abraham showed great promise as an artist from an early age and his father sold one of Abrahams floral still lives when he was only 15 years old. In 1649, at the age of 18, Abraham went to Italy to complete a commission for Prince Antonio Ruffo in Sicily and it was the first of many commissions in which Abraham demonstrated his artistic abilities in drawing floral still lifes. Already in 1649 an inventory of his patron Prince Antonio Ruffo records nine flower paintings by the 18-year-old artist, ten years later, in 1659, Brueghel moved to Rome, Italy where he married an Italian woman less than a year later. In 1670 he was invited into the Accademia di San Luca, a Roman academy, Abraham joined the Bentvueghels, an association of mainly Dutch and Flemish artists working in Rome. It was customary for the Bentvueghels to adopt an appealing nickname and he was given the bent name Rijngraaf, meaning duke of the Rhine, which was an old aristocratic title in Germany. When Abraham Genoels joined the Bentvueghels in 1670, Abraham Brueghel signed the bentbrief as Abraham Breugel, some time between 1672 and 1675, Abraham left Rome and moved to Naples, Italy. He played an important role in the development of still life painting in Naples, breughel remained in Naples until his death. He is believed to have died c.1690 in Naples, Abraham Brueghel established a reputation for his still lifes and in particular, floral still lives. One hunting still life signed and dated by him is known, due to lack of evolution during the artist’s mature period and the scarcity of dated works, it is difficult to establish a chronology of Abraham’s artistic development. His brushstrokes were generally slightly more painterly during his Roman period, the increasingly lush still lifes of the Flemish painters Frans Snyders, Jan Fyt and Pieter Boel who had also worked in Italy were the principal influences on Abraham Brueghel. Joannes Hermans, another Flemish painter in Rome also painted still lifes combining human figures, flowers and fruit. The result of the influences were compositions that appear casual, while maintaining strong composition. Abraham Brueghel is especially known for his still life paintings of southern fruits and flowers and they are frequently enhanced by a precious vase, an antique monument or fragments of Roman sculpture. His cartouches are heavier and more decorative and he painted his own landscapes but the staffage in his paintings was painted by well-known Italian painters, such as Carlo Maratta, Giovanni Battista Gaulli and Giacinto Brandi. A few collaborations between Abraham Brueghel and Guillaume Courtois, a French painter active in Rome, are recorded, an example is the Still life of fruits and flowers with a figure
33.
Jan van Kessel the Elder
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Jan van Kessel the Elder or Jan van Kessel was a Flemish painter active in Antwerp in the mid 17the century. Jan van Kessel the Elder was born in Antwerp as the son of Hieronymus van Kessel the Younger and he was thus Jan Brueghel the Elders grandson, Pieter Bruegel the Elders great-grandson and the nephew of Jan Brueghel the Younger). His direct ancestors in the van Kessel family line were his grandfather Hieronymus van Kessel the Elder and his father Hieronymus van Kessel the Younger, very little is known about the work of these van Kessel ancestors. At the age of only 9, Jan van Kessel was sent to study with the history painter Simon de Vos and he further trained with family members who were artists. He was a pupil of his father and his uncle Jan Brueghel the Younger, in 1644 he became a member of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke where he was recorded as a blomschilder. He married Maria van Apshoven on 11 June 1646, the couple had 13 children of whom two, Jan and Ferdinand, were trained by him and became successful painters. He was captain of a local schutterij in Antwerp, Jan van Kessel was financially successful as his works commanded high prices. He bought in 1656 a house called the Witte en Roode Roos in central Antwerp, by the time his wife died in 1678 his fortune seems to have turned for the worse. In 1679 he had to mortgage his house and he had become too ill to paint and died on 17 April 1679 in Antwerp. He trained other painters and also his own family members and his pupils included his sons Jan and Ferdinand. Jan van Kessel the Elders dated works range from 1648 to 1676, attribution of work to Jan van Kessel the Elder has been difficult due to confusion with other artists with a similar name all active around the same time. In addition to his son Jan, there was another Antwerp painter with the name Jan van Kessel who painted still lifes, another problem for attributions has been the fact that Jan van Kessel the Elder used two different styles of signature on his work. He used a cursive, more decorative signature for larger formats and this practice lead to the erroneous assumption that these works were made by two different painters. Obsessed with picturesque detail, van Kessel worked from nature and used illustrated scientific texts as sources for filling his pictures with objects represented with almost scientific accuracy. Jan van Kessel produced a number of studies of animals such as insects, caterpillars and reptiles as well as images of flowers. He showed himself to be an observer and his animal studies were praised in his day for their meticulousness. His work in this field reflects the worldview in which the appreciation of art. An important influence on his studies was the scientific naturalism of the Flemish artist Joris Hoefnagel known primarily for his illuminated manuscripts
34.
Netherlands Institute for Art History
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The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in documentation, archives, and books on Western art from the late Middle Ages until modern times, all of this is open to the public, and much of it has been digitized and is available on their website. The main goal of the bureau is to collect, categorize, via the available databases, the visitor can gain insight into archival evidence on the lives of many artists of past centuries. The library owns approximately 450,000 titles, of which ca.150,000 are auction catalogs, there are ca.3,000 magazines, of which 600 are currently running subscriptions. Though most of the text is in Dutch, the record format includes a link to library entries and images of known works. The RKD also manages the Dutch version of the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, the original version is an initiative of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. Their bequest formed the basis for both the art collection and the library, which is now housed in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. Though not all of the holdings have been digitised, much of its metadata is accessible online. The website itself is available in both a Dutch and an English user interface, in the artist database RKDartists, each artist is assigned a record number. To reference an artist page directly, use the code listed at the bottom of the record, usually of the form, https, for example, the artist record number for Salvador Dalí is 19752, so his RKD artist page can be referenced. In the images database RKDimages, each artwork is assigned a record number, to reference an artwork page directly, use the code listed at the bottom of the record, usually of the form, https, //rkd. nl/en/explore/images/ followed by the artworks record number. For example, the record number for The Night Watch is 3063. The Art and Architecture Thesaurus also assigns a record for each term, rather, they are used in the databases and the databases can be searched for terms. For example, the painting called The Night Watch is a militia painting, the thesaurus is a set of general terms, but the RKD also contains a database for an alternate form of describing artworks, that today is mostly filled with biblical references. To see all images that depict Miriams dance, the associated iconclass code 71E1232 can be used as a search term. Official website Direct link to the databases The Dutch version of the Art and Architecture Thesaurus
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International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
36.
The Fight Between Carnival and Lent
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The Fight Between Carnival and Lent is an oil-on-panel work painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1559. This painting depicts a festival of the period, as celebrated in the Southern Netherlands. The busy scene depicts well-behaved children near the church and a drinking scene near the inn. At the centre is a well, showing the coming together of different parts of the community, the painting is part of the collection at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Bruegels painting is rich in allegories and symbolisms that have long studied. It is often read as the triumph of Lent, since the figure of Carnival seems to bid farewell with his left hand, a more generalised meaning may be the illustration of Bruegels belief that human activities are motivated by folly and self-seeking. The painting defies any linear narrative, but one may divide it into two sections, the popular and the religious. The scene is set in a market square, with the figure of Carnival impersonated by a fat man who led a procession through the town. In some traditions an effigy of the Carnival figure was burned at the end of the celebrations, in Bruegels painting the figure is a large man riding a beer barrel with a pork chop attached to its front end. He is wearing a meat pie as a head-dress, he is wielding a long spit, complete with a pigs head. The pouch of knives at his belt indicates that he is a butcher - the guild of butchers traditionally provided the meat for the carnival feast so his place at the heart is apt. The man behind the barrel is dressed in yellow, which is connected with deceit, in one hand she holds a tumbler and in the other a candle, again allegorical symbols for deceit. Beside her is a lute-player, which was a frequent symbol of Lutheranism, the Lutherans had abolished Lent but still celebrated the Carnival. A tavern filled with drinkers and onlookers watch the performance of a popular known as The Dirty Bride. At the street crossing a group of cripples have come out to beg, while behind them, led by a bagpiper, a procession of lepers walks past. Lents half of the picture is dominated by abstinence and piety, with people drawing water from the well, giving alms to the poor and the sick, the church itself is the dominant building from which queues of black figures emerge from their prayers. Lady Lent in the foreground, garbed like a nun, is sitting on a cart drawn by a monk and a nun, lady Lents wagon contains traditional Lenten foods, pretzels, waffles, and mussels. In Bruegels time, when the Protestant Reformation was surging, many of the old customs were under threat, the Roman Catholic attachment to Lenten rites was heavily criticised by the Protestant reformers and the spirit of carnival was viewed with suspicion on both sides of the religious divide
37.
Netherlandish Proverbs
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Running themes in Bruegels paintings are the absurdity, wickedness and foolishness of humans, and this is no exception. The paintings original title, The Blue Cloak or The Folly of the World, indicates that Bruegels intent was not just to illustrate proverbs, many of the people depicted show the characteristic blank features that Bruegel used to portray fools. His son, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, specialised in making copies of his fathers work, not all versions of the painting, by father or son, show exactly the same proverbs and they also differ in other minor details. Proverbs were very popular in Bruegels time and before, a hundred years before Bruegels painting, a number of collections were published, including Adagia, by the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus. The French writer François Rabelais employed significant numbers in his novel Gargantua and Pantagruel, the Flemish artist Frans Hogenberg made an engraving illustrating 43 proverbs in around 1558, roughly the same time as Bruegels painting. The work is similar in composition to Bruegels and includes certain proverbs which also feature prominently in Netherlandish Proverbs. By depicting literal renditions of proverbs in a peasant setting, both artists have shown a world turned upside down, critics have praised the composition for its ordered portrayal and integrated scene. There are approximately 112 identifiable proverbs and idioms in the scene, many more have faded from use or have never been used in English. Having ones roof tiled with tarts, for example, which meant to have an abundance of everything and was an image Bruegel would later feature in his painting of the idyllic Land of Cockaigne. The Blue Cloak, the original title, features in the centre of the piece and is being placed on a man by his wife. A man fills in a pond after his calf has died, just above the central figure of the blue-cloaked man another man carries daylight in a basket. Some of the figures seem to represent more than one figure of speech, such as the man shearing a sheep in the bottom left of the picture. This painting has inspired others to depict multiple proverbs in their paintings, an illustration from the Hong Kong magazine Passion Times illustrates dozens of Cantonese proverbs. The painting Proverbidioms was also inspired by this Dutch painting to depict English proverbs, hagen, Rose-Marie, ed. Bruegel, The Complete Paintings. How to Read a Painting, Lessons from the Old Masters, the Netherlandish Proverbs by Pieter Brueghel the Younger. The Netherlandish Proverbs, An International Symposium on the Pieter Bruegels, orenstein, Nadine M. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Drawings and Prints
38.
Children's Games (Bruegel)
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Childrens Games is an oil-on-panel by Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1560. It is currently held and exhibited at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and this painting, mentioned for the first time by Karel van Mander in 1604, was acquired in 1594 by Archduke Ernest of Austria. It has been suggested that it was the first in a series of paintings representing the Ages of Man. If that was Bruegels intention, it is unlikely that the series progressed beyond this painting and this crowded scene is to some extent relieved by the landscape in the top left-hand corner, but even here children are bathing in the river and playing on its banks. His moral is that in the mind of God childrens games possess as much significance as the activities of their parents
39.
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
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Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is a painting in oil on canvas measuring 73.5 by 112 centimetres in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. It was long thought to be by the painter of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting. According to the museum, It is doubtful the execution is by Breugel the Elder, largely derived from Ovid, the painting is described in W. H. In Greek mythology, Icarus succeeded in flying, with wings made by his father Daedalus, ignoring his fathers warnings, Icarus chose to fly too close to the sun, melting the wax, and fell into the sea and drowned. His legs can be seen in the water just below the ship, the sun, already half-set on the horizon, is a long way away, the flight did not reach anywhere near it. Daedalus does not appear in this version of the painting, though he does, still flying, there is also a Flemish proverb, And the farmer continued to plough. Pointing out the ignorance of people to fellow mens suffering, the painting may, as Audens poem suggests, depict humankinds indifference to suffering by highlighting the ordinary events which continue to occur, despite the unobserved death of Icarus. Giving more prominence to low subject-matter than high in the work is a feature of some Northern Mannerist art. The traditional moral of the Icarus story, warning against excessive ambition, is reinforced by fore-grounding humbler figures who appear content to fill useful agricultural roles in life, the painting is probably a version of a lost original by Bruegel. A date of c.1558 has been suggested for the lost original, based on Bruegels other works and it is in oils whereas Bruegels other paintings on canvas are in tempera. The original would have been Bruegels only known painting of a mythological subject, the perspective of the ship and figures is not entirely consistent, although this may enhance the power of the composition. Bruegel also produced a design for an engraving with the ship, in 1963, Philippe Roberts-Jones, curator at the museum, and the Bruegel specialist Georges Marlier, hypothesized that an original panel painting had been later moved onto canvas, as was once common. As mentioned here above, the conclusion of this dating was that P. Bruegel the Elder cannot have painted on this canvas, later, in 2006, Prof. J. Reisse challenged this dating on technical grounds. From bottom to top, Canvas, Oily lead white, Thick oily layer with azurite, Chalk ground, Oily lead white with scarce particles of charcoal, Oily blue with azurite, with layers 4 to 6 being original. The presence of ground under the original blue proves that this is a panel painting transposed on a canvas. The original blue layer is white with azurite containing a few grains of ochre. These structure and composition match perfectly those found on other certified panels of Peter Bruegel, moreover, it is noticeable that the wood charcoal particles are very peculiar, being very long and acicular, exactly the same as those found only in The Census from the same Museum. Recently, a study of the underdrawing using infrared reflectography has been published, reflectography is based on the fact that the infrared light penetrates all colors except black
40.
The Triumph of Death
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The Triumph of Death is an oil panel painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted c. It has been in the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1827, the painting shows a panorama of an army of skeletons wreaking havoc across a blackened, desolate landscape. Fires burn in the distance, and the sea is littered with shipwrecks, a few leafless trees stud hills otherwise bare of vegetation, fish lie rotting on the shores of a corpse-choked pond. Art historian James Snyder emphasizes the scorched, barren earth, devoid of any life as far as the eye can see, in this setting, legions of skeletons advance on the living, who either flee in terror or try in vain to fight back. In the foreground, skeletons haul a wagon full of skulls, in the left corner. A fool plays the lute while a lady sings, behind both of them a skeleton plays along, a starving dog nibbles at the face of a child, a cross sits in the center of the painting. People are herded into a coffin shaped trap decorated with crosses, the painting depicts people of different social backgrounds – from peasants and soldiers to nobles as well as a king and a cardinal – being taken by death indiscriminately. A skeleton parodies human happiness by playing a hurdy-gurdy while the wheels of his crush a man. A woman has fallen in the path of the cart, she holds in her hand a spindle and distaff. Near by another woman in the part of the cart has a thread which is about to be cut by the scissors in her other hand. Just below her a cardinal is helped towards his fate by a skeleton who wears the red hat. In one detail, a dinner has been broken up and the diners are putting up a futile resistance and they have drawn their swords in order to fight the skeletons dressed in winding-sheets, no less hopelessly, the jester takes refuge beneath the dinner table. The backgammon board and the cards have been scattered, while a skeleton thinly disguised with a mask empties away the wine flasks. Above, a woman is being embraced by a skeleton in a parody of after-dinner amorousness. Of the menu of the meal, all that can be seen are a few pallid rolls of bread. As the fighting breaks out, a skeleton in a hooded robe mockingly seems to bring another dish, also consisting of human bones, the painting shows aspects of everyday life in the mid-sixteenth century. Clothes are clearly depicted, as are such as playing cards. In one scene a human is the prey of a skeleton-hunter, in another scene a man with a grinding stone around his neck is about to be thrown into the pond
41.
The Fall of the Rebel Angels (Bruegel)
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The Fall of the Rebel Angels is an oil-on-panel by Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1562. It is currently held and exhibited at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, together with Dulle Griet and The Triumph of Death, which have similar dimensions, it was probably painted for the same collector and destined to become part of a series. The archangel Michael and his angels are shown by Bruegel in the act of driving the rebel angels from Heaven. Pride was the sin which caused the fall of Lucifer and his companions, details This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. article name needed. The Fall at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium Bosch Bruegel Society 99 works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder Creative Bruegel laid the foundation of the Netherlands School Bruegel
42.
The Suicide of Saul
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The Suicide of Saul is an oil-on-panel by Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1562. It is currently held and exhibited at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the inscription identifies the subject as the rarely represented scene of the suicide of Saul after his defeat by the Philistines. These events are described in 1 Samuel 31, 1-5, Bruegel has chosen the highly dramatic moment of the death of the armourbearer, just as the Philistines are approaching. As with most of his subjects taken from the Bible, Bruegel treats Sauls suicide as a contemporary event, the Suicide of Saul is an early attempt by Bruegel to reconcile landscape and figure painting
43.
Dull Gret
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Dulle Griet, also known as Mad Meg, is a figure of Flemish folklore who is the subject of a 1562 oil-on-panel by Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The painting depicts a virago, Dulle Griet, who leads an army of women to pillage Hell, like those pictures, Dulle Griet owes much to Hieronymus Bosch. Bruegels earliest biographer, Karel van Mander, writing in 1604, described the painting as Dulle Griet and it came into the collections of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, then was looted by the Swedish troops in 1648, and reappeared in Stockholm in 1800. Art collector Fritz Mayer van den Bergh discovered it in 1897 at an auction in Cologne, Griet was a disparaging name given to any bad-tempered, shrewish woman. Her mission refers to the Flemish proverb, She could plunder in front of hell, Bruegel is thus making fun of noisy, aggressive women. Dulle Griet appears as a character in Caryl Churchills play Top Girls, I come out my front door that morning and shout till my neighbors come out and I said, Come on, were going where the evil come from and pay the bastards out. Griet wears male armour — a breastplate, a glove and a metal cap, her military costume is parodied by the monster in a helmet beside her. A knife hangs from her side, while in her right she carries a sword, the pigment analysis was conducted by the scientists at the Ghent University. Bruegel used the cheap smalt for the robe of the figure of Mad Meg instead of the more expensive ultramarine together with vermilion. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Dulle Griet at the Museum Mayer van den Bergh Bosch Bruegel Society 99 works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder Creative Bruegel laid the foundation of the Netherlands School Bruegel, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Mad Meg, ColourLex
44.
The Tower of Babel (Bruegel)
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The Tower of Babel was the subject of three paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The first, a painted on ivory, was painted while Bruegel was in Rome and is now lost. The two surviving paintings, often distinguished by the prefix Great and Little are in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, both are oil paintings on wood panels. The Rotterdam painting is about half the size of the Vienna one, in broad terms they have exactly the same composition, but at a detailed level everything is different, whether in the architecture of the tower, the sky and the landscape around the tower. In Vienna the tower rises at the edge of a large city, Bruegel had visited Rome in 1552–1553. The Tower was also symbolic of the turmoil between the Catholic church and the polyglot Protestant religion that was increasingly popular in the Netherlands. The subject may have had a specific topicality, as the famous Polyglot Bible in six languages, although at first glance the tower appears to be a stable series of concentric pillars, upon closer examination it is apparent that none of the layers lies at a true horizontal. Rather the tower is built as an ascending spiral, the workers in the painting have built the arches perpendicular to the slanted ground, thereby making them unstable and a few arches can already be seen crumbling. The foundation and bottom layers of the tower had not been completed before the layers were constructed. Lucas van Valckenborch, a contemporary of Bruegels, also painted the Tower of Babel in the 1560s and later in his career, both were part of a larger tradition of painting the tower during the 16th and 17th centuries. The story of the Tower of Babel was interpreted as an example of pride punished, moreover, the hectic activity of the engineers, masons and workmen points to a second moral, the futility of much human endeavour. Nimrods doomed building was used to illustrate this meaning in Sebastian Brants Ship of Fools Bruegels knowledge of building procedures and techniques is considerable and correct in detail. Both towers are shown partly-built with stone facings over a massive brick framework, grand and formal architecture of this sort is not a usual interest of Bruegel in either paintings or drawings, although it was typical subject matter for many of his contemporaries. There are no surviving drawings that are studies for this or any other of Bruegels paintings and this is despite indications that Bruegel did make use of preparatory studies. Both Tower versions are full of the type of details which are likely to have worked out in sketches first. Except for a lack of mountains, the paintings contain the ingredients of the world landscape. The Vienna tower is built around a very small mountain. The Vienna painting is signed and dated Brvegel, M. CCCCC. LXIII, on the stone block directly in front of the king
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Media related to Pieter Brueghel (II) at Wikimedia Commons
