Dutch Heights: rare prints of the 16th century presented at the Pushkin Museum

The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and the State Hermitage Museum organized the exhibition "Not only Brueghel: Dutch engraving of the XVI century from the collections of Moscow and St. Petersburg." The exhibition, featuring the names of Brueghel, Raphael, and Bronzino, is dedicated to the first major publishing house in Europe. Next to the Greek Courtyard in the main building of the Pushkin Museum, there are printed works by outstanding European artists. Izvestia appreciated the new exhibition project.

Touch the art

The chamber exhibition was located in Hall 31 near the Greek Courtyard and brought together exhibits from several major collections.

"Due to the fact that our country has two large museums of Western European art, the State Hermitage Museum and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, we work very closely and interact with colleagues from St. Petersburg," Olga Galaktionova, director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, told Izvestia. — The exhibition features prints from their collection and from the collection of our museum. In addition, the Russian State Library from Moscow and the Russian National Library from St. Petersburg are participating.

The focus is on the publishing house On Four Winds (1550-1570) and its creator, Hieronymus Kok. He was an artist and engraver from Antwerp. In 20 years, Coca's publishing house of art prints from small has become the largest in Europe. The merit of this man also lies in the fact that thanks to the art of the engravers he commissioned, we can see what has been lost over the years. For example, what Rome looked like in the 16th century, what people dressed in, what they were passionate about. A large collection of antique prints appeared in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts among the first.

Kok was one of those who gave an impulse to saturate book publications with visual images. The publisher commissioned famous artists, and then the engravers created cliches based on their drawings. Prints from wooden and later copper plates became independent works of art.

Engraving is an expensive pleasure. Only the grandees or very wealthy gentlemen could afford it. The Cook made no more than 100 impressions from each plate, although up to one and a half thousand were possible. He watched the prints disperse.

—Kok was one of the first to publish prints by Italian artists — he introduced his compatriots to the Vatican frescoes by Raphael," Natalia Markova, curator of the exhibition and a leading researcher at the Graphic Department of the State Museum of Fine Arts, told Izvestia. — In Rome, Kok met the famous engraver Giorgio Ghisi, who commissioned him to create the first engravings from frescoes by Raphael. At that time, there were no machines of the required large format. Therefore, two boards were used. The prints from them were overlapped sheet by sheet. The place of gluing can be seen in the center.

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We are talking about the engravings "The Dispute about Holy Communion", "The Athenian School" and "Christmas. The worship of shepherds." They came to the State Museum of Fine Arts from the engraving cabinet of the Rumyantsev collection, which was located in St. Petersburg.

— Count Rumyantsev's collection was transported to Moscow. She is already over 150 years old. It has been gathering since 1861. Although our museum is 113 years old, — Natalia Markova emphasized.

As the curator notes, the museum's collection was replenished from private collections, for example, by the Baryatinsky princes. But if earlier engravings were of interest to collectors, now Natalia Markova does not know a single person who would specialize in Dutch engraving.

The exhibition just presents the sheets of Peter Brueghel the Elder from the Baryatinsky collection. As part of the inclusive program, a tactile zone with a fragment of an engraving from the Seven Deadly Sins series will be created at the exhibition. Blind and visually impaired visitors will be able to touch metal plates with the contours of a part of the image from the print. And also hold the engraver's working tool in your hands.

The imperfection of the world

Brueghel created genre compositions and engravings on folklore and carnival themes. The exhibition features two engravings by master Peter van der Heyden — "Poor kitchen" and "Fat kitchen". They are made according to Brueghel's drawings.

"Giorgio Vasari wrote that these works depict the image of Lent and Shrovetide," the curator explains. — The first engraving shows a fat man being invited to a table. And in the kitchen, thin people are cooking something on the stove. But the guest does not want to and says: "Where the skinny pot is in the way, there will be no delicious and plentiful food. I'm going to the obese kitchen." This can be seen in the caption under the drawing — in Latin and in Dutch.

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In the engraving "Fat Kitchen", a thin guest tries to enter the obese, but they do not let him in. The poor man resists, and they say to him: "Hey, skinny, you may be hungry, but this kitchen is fat, and there is no place for you here." Brueghel in his works pointed not only to sins, but also to social inequality.

And Dutch engravers Jan van Dootekum Sr. and Lucas van Dootekum turned to paintings by Hieronymus Bosch. They liked the symbolism in his works. And this is what visitors to the exhibition can see in the engraving "St. Martin". He is the patron saint of the poor, the sick, and the hungry. St. Martin's Day was celebrated on November 11, which coincided with the harvest festival of young wine. That is why many of the characters in the engraving are depicted drunk, who extort alms from Martin. Therein lies the imperfection of the world.

There is one engraving at the exhibition, unlike the others. It is not made in monochrome, but in color.

— The cook did not color the engravings, because then the work immediately became five times more expensive, — said Markova. — It was made only to order. There are few color engravings preserved. The exhibition features a work from the collection of Alexei Egorov. This is a fine work of the XVI century, made in watercolor and gouache. But there is very little information on the painted engravings of that period. Therefore, I cannot say for sure that it belongs to Brueghel or Kok. Although I do not exclude such a possibility.

The exhibition features a drawing and an engraving made from it. The landscape by the artist Hans Bole is executed very precisely with a pen. The details are finely drawn. This was not done intentionally with paints, so that the engraver could more accurately reproduce the drawing on the plate. He worked with cutters. And his lines were the same thickness as the stroke of the artist's pen. But the impression from the engraved plate was mirrored in relation to the drawing. It couldn't be any other way. The original and a mirror copy made in a different technique are shown behind glass at the exhibition.

The exhibition is waiting for visitors until October 12.