The work of Bosch and Bruegel is full of imagination and fantasy. Where other artists stuck to traditional subjects, they were constantly looking for the new. They found motifs in both the everyday world around them and in the supernatural. Satire and mockery alternated with visions of heaven and hell.
Jheronimus Bosch (c. 1450-1516) was not a graphic artist himself, but his fantastic images of monsters and demons quickly found their way into printmaking. Half a century after the artist's death, his work experienced a real revival. Various printmakers designed images in the spirit of Bosch, often with whole armies of monsters, devils and monstrosities. Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526/30-1569), in particular, addressed this. The 1558 series The Seven Deadly Sins, in which Bruegel managed to at least match the imagination of his predecessor in depicting hell and damnation, sin and punishment, is a highlight. Not for nothing did contemporaries call him a ‘second Bosch’.
Bruegel was a brilliant printmaker. Only once did he execute a print entirely by himself: the sublime etching The Rabbit Hunt from 1560. All the other prints with which we associate his name were made in close collaboration with professional engravers such as Pieter van der Heyden and Philips Galle. These include landscape prints with breathtaking vistas, allegorical representations of money and deceit, and scenes of everyday life with celebrating peasants, merry skaters and mocking jesters. With approximately 75 prints, the exhibition highlights the rich pictorial world of Bosch and Bruegel in all its facets. All the works come from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s world-famous print room.
Note: Works on paper can change due to lux restrictions because of previous presentations.
Want to know more?
Sandra Tatsakis Director Touring Exhibitions T + 31 (0)10 44 19 421 tatsakis@boijmans.nl
