Claude-Henri Rocquet—poet, playwright, and critic—has marshalled the full range of his talents to create a dazzling historical novel about the artist Peter Bruegel the Elder. To the few facts we have—Bruegel died in 1569 around the age of fifty; he lived in Antwerp and in Brussels; his work was much admired—Rocquet adds his own speculations on the sights, smells, and textures of Bruegel's world, on the artist's innermost feelings and intimate conversations, on his spiritual life and its possible translation on the artist's canvas.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The earthy peasant scenes and nightmarish visions of the netherworld painted by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (ca. 1525-1569) seem to cry out for a sociopolitical reading. But Parisian art historian Rocquet's biography, an "imaginative portrait," suffers from a central impediment: almost nothing is known about Brueghel's life. Hardcore fans of the Flemish artist may enjoy this highly speculative profile, which builds on the known facts with invented conversations, interior monologues and suppositions. We follow the painter as he wanders from town to town, attending fairs and banquets, observing windmills, hangings and the oppression of the Low Countries by King Philip II of Spain. We watch Brueghel move in 1563 from the bustling port of Antwerp to verdant Brussels, where he lives on a country lane and paints in a workshop attic. And, as Brueghel creates a surreal triptych, the reader imaginatively descends with him "into that Babylon of caverns and depths that we all are."
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The spiritually wracked and violence-tormented world of the mid-16th-century Lowlands is the locus of this loosely structured and meditative historical novel. Organized around the artistic activities of Peter Bruegel (d.1569), the book devolves into an often predictably poetic gathering of descriptive evocations of the master's work; images of places and scenes that he may have experienced; art, historical, and cultural trivia; and several vivid re-creations of the contemporary political world. In the knowingly anachronistic formulation of the author, Bruegel's art becomes a device for articulating a notion of creativity as personal expression while largely omitting the social context of patronage. The overarching attempt to transmute this material into a more profound metaphorical scheme is both unconvincing and unmoving.
- Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New York
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New York
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Often physical towns and fortresses do not last as long as their more fragile images, which lie hidden from the gnawing light of day, sometimes for centuries, in the libraries and museums of other towns: figures fashioned from a little ink, water, and dust, intact amid the ruins-paper butterflies bearing worlds to safety on their wings. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Low Countries, Pieter Coeck, Peter Bruegel, William of Nassau, Pieter van Aalst, Saint Anthony, Four Winds, Hieronymus Bosch, Mayken Bessemers, Saint Luke, William of Orange, Did Bruegel, Forêt de Soignes, John of Leiden, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Les Marolles, Louis of Nassau, Lucas of Leiden, Mayken Verhulst, New World, Saint Lawrence, Christopher Plantin, Emperor Charles, Last Judgment, Matthias Cock New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Often physical towns and fortresses do not last as long as their more fragile images, which lie hidden from the gnawing light of day, sometimes for centuries, in the libraries and museums of other towns: figures fashioned from a little ink, water, and dust, intact amid the ruins-paper butterflies bearing worlds to safety on their wings. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Low Countries, Pieter Coeck, Peter Bruegel, William of Nassau, Pieter van Aalst, Saint Anthony, Four Winds, Hieronymus Bosch, Mayken Bessemers, Saint Luke, William of Orange, Did Bruegel, Forêt de Soignes, John of Leiden, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Les Marolles, Louis of Nassau, Lucas of Leiden, Mayken Verhulst, New World, Saint Lawrence, Christopher Plantin, Emperor Charles, Last Judgment, Matthias Cock New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 6
books:
See all 6 books this book cites
- William the Silent by C V Wedgewood in Back Matter
- Pieter Bruegel (Great Artists) by Adam G. Klein in Back Matter
- The Promised Land by Isabelle Holland on page 1
- Table Talk (Pure Gold Classic) (Pure Gold Classics) by Martin Luther on page 9
- The Illustrations from the Works of Andreas Vesalius of Brussels (Dover Fine Art, History of Art) by J. B. deC. M. Saunders in Back Matter
See all 6 books this book cites
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