Pieter Bruegel and the Art of Laughter
Regular price
€83.99
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
16th century culture
16th century flemish art
A01=Walter S. Gibson
allegory
art
art history
art of laughter
artists
Author_Walter S. Gibson
baroque art
Category=AFC
Category=AGA
Category=AGB
comic artist
comic potential
commodity of laughter
culture of laughter
drawings
dulle griet
dutch art history
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
festive peasants
flemish paintings
hieronymus bosch
humor
laughter
northern renaissance art
painter
physiognomy
pieter bruegel
pieter bruegel the elder
prints
the kermis
the wedding banquet
the wedding dance
Product details
- ISBN 9780520245211
- Weight: 635g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Feb 2006
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Pieter Bruegel (ca. 1525-1569), generally considered the greatest Flemish painter of the sixteenth century, was described in 1604 by his earliest biographer as a supremely comic artist, few of whose works failed to elicit laughter. Today, however, we approach Bruegel's art as anything but a laughing matter. His paintings and drawings are thought to conceal profound allegories best illuminated with scholarly erudition. In this delightfully engaging book, Walter S. Gibson takes a new look at Bruegel, arguing that the artist was no erudite philosopher, but a man very much in the world, and that a significant part of his art is best appreciated in the context of humor. In his illuminating examination of the witty and amusing elements in Bruegel's paintings, prints, and drawings in relation to the sixteenth century European culture of laughter, Gibson reminds us exactly why Bruegel was one of the most original artists of his time.
In a series of engrossing chapters, Gibson explores the function and production of laughter in the sixteenth century, examines the ways in which Bruegel exploited the comic potential of Hieronymus Bosch, and traces how the artist developed his remarkable gift for physiognomy in his work, culminating in three paintings of festive peasants he produced during the 1560s: the Wedding Dance, the Kermis, and the Wedding Banquet. Gibson also takes a detailed look at the Dulle Griet, Bruegel's most complex evocation of Bosch.
Walter S. Gibson is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities Emeritus at Case Western Reserve University and the author of several books, including Pleasant Places: The Rustic Landscape from Bruegel to Ruisdael (California, 2000) and Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Two Studies (1991).
