![]() Tine Luk Meganck, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Fall of the Rebel Angels : Art, Knowledge and Politics on the Eve of the Dutch Revolt, Brussels, Silvana Editoriale & Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, 2014. We can therefore ask the question as to whether, by emulating Bosch – particularly with The Garden of Earthly Delights in Orange's possession – Bruegel was targeting the collector Granvelle or his fight for power. Bruegel was familiar with the culture of both the rhetoricians and the court collectors. Different participants mentioned Lucifer's disobedience as a negative example pride led to discord and disorder, which were a threat to peace. Rhetoricians from Brussels organised a competition on the issue of "How to maintain peace in these countries". From a theatre performance organised that same year, we can deduce that the population also felt that tensions had reached a peak. As for Granvelle, he reported Orange's growing disobedience to the King. ![]() In 1562, Orange made his Brussels palace the home of the "League against Granvelle". It was one of these paintings that Bruegel tried to surpass in The Fall of the Rebel Angels. ![]() Whilst Orange himself was not a great collector, he had inherited one of the Flemish master's works, which was the subject of great envy: Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. This position led to a power struggle with the local nobility, including the young William of Orange. In 1561, Granvelle was named Archbishop of Malines. He owned at least one more of Bruegel's works. History remembers Granvelle as a hated politician, but he was also a great patron, hosting artists in his palace, and a great collector of artificialia and naturalia, the type of enthusiast that Bruegel targeted. She was advised by the powerful Cardinal de Granvelle. By transposing the sundial onto the back of this fallen angel, Bruegel seems to treat these ideas with a certain irony.Īt the time, Margaret of Parma was the Regent of the Netherlands. This type of sundial was also believed to be a measuring instrument capable of correcting earthly chaos and keeping people more in sync with the regularity of the universe. The instrument further reminds the viewer to use his time on earth wisely. Oriented in this way, the sundial takes on a very specific meaning: it recalls the omnipresence of the fight between Good and Evil, echoing the amalgamation of the two stories, one from the beginning and the other from the end of time. The other circles represent the signs of the zodiac which often figure on this type of instrument. It tells the time based on the position of the sun.īruegel took his attention to detail so far as to paint the different inscriptions on the sundial in red and black. The compass in the middle, made from a needle and a bronze plaque, is embedded into the ivory. This type of portable clock was generally made from ivory and was highly prized by collectors due to its precious nature.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |