Bruegel family, picturing daily life

Bird Trap by Guy, Oil on canvas

The Bruegel family (father Pieter, sons and grand sons) were all painters. They were productively painting from the mid-sixteenth century through the seventeenth century, primarily in Antwerp. Subjects painted were still lifes, sceneries, biblical history scenes and farmer life activities.

Move away from this site and read more about the Bruegel family.

I chose to inspire myself on the "bird-trap", a picture that became famous in Bruegel's own time as it was respected by contempory artists because of the strong scenery perspective. Quite a few artists (Joos de Momper, Hendrick Avercamp, Aert van der Neer and Rouland Savery) were greatly inspired by "the Bruegel tradition" to paint landscapes and sceneries.
The pictures you see on this page are from my interpretation of the "bird trap". I worked on this painting over a period of 3 months during the winter evenings of 1993.

I believe there are about 80 original paintings of this subject (Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels and Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna have a copy). About 5 years ago, a bird-trap from P. Bruegel The Elder was for sale at tefaf in Maastricht for around EURO 1,25 Million.

I never understood why the ice on the river was painted in a yellow tone (or did the icy tone disappear over time?) and decided to give the ice the tone of the winter clouds, cold and icy.

The strong composition attracts the eye into the landscape. The numerous figures, enjoying themselves after hard labor, guide us over the iced river towards the hills and the horizon. We only see the facades of the houses joining the river and we are curious to enter into the village itself, but of course we can't...

Even though winters must have been very tough for the farmer and village people, the picture provokes a cozy atmosphere of beauty and harmony. The tough winter of 2009-2010 in Europe must remind us of those times...


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