(Dutch pronunciation:c. 1525 - 9 September 1569) was a Flemish Renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (Genre Painting). He is sometimes referred to as "Peasant Bruegel" to distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynasty, but is also the one generally meant when the context does not make clear which "Bruegel" is being referred to. From 1559 he dropped the 'h' from his name and started signing his paintings as Bruegel. There are records that he was born in Breda, Netherlands, but it is uncertain whether the Dutch town of Breda or the Belgian town of Bree, called Breda in Latin, is meant. He was an apprentice of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, whose daughter Mayken he later married. He spent some time in France and Italy, and then went to Antwerp, where in 1551 he was accepted as a master in the painter's guild. He traveled to Italy soon after, and then returned to Antwerp before settling in Brussels permanently 10 years later. He received the nickname 'Peasant Bruegel' or 'Bruegel the Peasant' for his alleged practice of dressing up like a peasant in order to mingle at weddings and other celebrations, thereby gaining inspiration and authentic details for his genre paintings. He died in Brussels on 9 September 1569 and was buried in the Kapellekerk. He was the father of Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder. Both became painters, but as they were very young children when their father died, it is believed neither received any training from him.   Related Paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder :. | The Tower of Babel | Fall of Icarus | Children's Games | The Census at Bethlehem | De Dulle Griet |
Related Artists:
Matteo Rosselli
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1578-1650 Italian painter. An influential artist of the early 17th century in Florence, he is described by the early sources as being of a gentle disposition and as a dedicated and dignified painter, although he lacked originality and power. His work is characterized by the simplicity, descriptive naturalism and refined colour of the Counter-Reformation art created by such Tuscan artists as Santi di Tito, Bernardino Poccetti, Lodovico Cigoli and Domenico Passignano, yet he was also responsive to Venetian and Emilian art. The son of Alfonso Rosselli and Elena Coppi, he received his early education in Gregorio Pagani's studio, which he attended from as early as 1587. His initial inclination was towards classical and balanced compositions, in which the influence of Andrea del Sarto, whose frescoes he copied in the Chiostro dello Scalzo, is clear. On 26 February 1599 he was admitted to the Accademia del Disegno and in 1605 went to be with Passignano in Rome for six months, greatly enriching his artistic experiences through this contact. He returned to Florence in the same year and, on Pagani's death (1605), completed his master's unfinished works with great success. Pagani's influence can be seen in the bright colours of Rosselli's Adoration of the Magi (1607; Montevarchi, Arezzo, S Andrea). To 1610 belong two monochrome paintings depicting Henry IV at Nantes and Henry IV at Gaudebec
Meunier, Constantin
Belgian Painter and Sculptor, 1831-1905 Belgian sculptor, painter and draughtsman. He was directed towards an artistic career by his elder brother, the engraver Jean-Baptiste Meunier (1821-1900). He entered the Acad?mie des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, in September 1845 and studied under the sculptor Louis Jehotte (1804-84) from 1848. In addition, in 1852 he attended the private studio of the sculptor Charles-Auguste Fraikin. Gradually he came to feel that sculpture, at least in the traditional form taught in Brussels, was incapable of providing an adequate vehicle for either exposition or expression. Still at the Academy, he transferred to painting, therefore, in 1853, and followed the courses given by Fran?ois-Joseph Navez, studying in the evenings at the Saint-Luc studio, with Charles De Groux. He became friends with Louis Dubois, F?licien Rops and other rebellious young artists who were to found the Soci?t? Libre des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1868. With these, Meunier was part of the realist avant-garde, while seeking out a path of his own in painting. It has been said that De Groux had a decisive influence on Meunier. The latter partly denied this and insisted that he had felt the need very early to practise an art that was more devoted to the masses, to the people. His interest in everyday life, in the experience and condition of man, can already be discerned in the sketches and studies he made during his stays in the Trappist monastery of Westmalle, near Antwerp, between 1857 and 1875.
Antoine Vestier
(1740 - 1824) was a French miniaturist and painter of portraits, born at Avallon in Burgundy, who trained in the atelier of Jean-Baptiste Pierre. He showed his work at the Salon de la Correspondance, Paris, before being admitted to the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1785, when a portrait of the painter Gabriel-François Doyen, pwas his morceau de reception. Among his sitters was the royal beniste, Jean-Henri Riesener (1786, Musee de Versailles).