They Weep for Us: Pieter Bruegel's Procession to Calvary

[@artbyty]

Love your commentaries on Bruegel. Looking forward to your comments on Hunters the Snow.

[@AmorSciendi]

I'm sure I'll get to it someday. I seem to do at least one video about breugel per year. I was thinking Carnival and Lent might be next though

[@mrnobody-unowen]

Another thing to note - Millers had a bad reputation for being swindlers in Medieval and Early Modern europe. It was said that they didn’t give fair prices for letting people grind grain at their mills- and lords would make it impossible for people to grind grain in their own homes so that they could collect more taxes from millers. They were seen as another tool of authority.

[@AmorSciendi]

Yes. Great point. State authority usurping religious or moral authority

[@meganduffyellison4977]

Absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing, as always.

[@willemvandebeek]

Yet another brilliant analysis of a Brueghel painting, amazing! Thank you for sharing your lecture, please keep up this good work.

[@a-8007]

Thank you! One of my fav painters!

[@TheDreadfulCurtain]

Great analysis. I would not have noticed any of this without your commentary I love learning new things. Thank you.

[@beverlykandraceffinger3764]

As always, such an excellent and entertaining piece of scholarship from Amor Sciendi. Thanks once again.

[@sereminar4]

A rather timely video

[@cloudsinmykoffie]

This is absolutely crazy. Thank you so much for sharing this!

[@AmorSciendi]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@CarterMuller]

Criminally underrated content

[@agush_co]

Great video! Your breakdown was really clear and easily understandable ❤

[@AmorSciendi]

Thanks

[@beverlykandraceffinger3764]

An aside: There is a wonderful feature Art Film from Lech Majewski, entitled "The Mill and the Cross" (2011) which literally brings this painting, and the process of creating it, to life. It's worth viewing.

[@AmorSciendi]

I read the book as research and I watched the film in theaters back in 2011 :) it's a weird one

[@dounutkiller]

Loved this analysis! Thank you.

[@leylaakinci2416]

This is is art History on a next level! Thank you

[@AmorSciendi]

Thank you! Glad you appreciate it

[@leylaakinci2416]

Pleasure to follow your channel.

[@BariumCobaltNitrog3n]

Love Bruegel, his style perfectly narrates the crude nature of humanity. I was hoping for some of your detailed geometry and got some. His vague sense of depth and loose perspective encourages the eye to wander about and bring a notebook. The bystander effect must be an old concept (not wanting to be the first to help) because Jesus could be any homeless person lying on a busy sidewalk; possibly sick, drunk or injured while people walk by. The wife telling her husband not to waste his spare change, it will go towards ale not food. Bruegel's perfectly bleak color palette and cord-wood people give me the sense that this is just an average Tuesday in the low country.

[@AmorSciendi]

Yes spot on. I was really happy to return to my formal analysis stuff with this one

[@nigelbanksart]

Haha - a cursory initial look at the picture and I was sure that it would leave me untouched. How wrong could I be? As always, I get to the end of another exquisitely compassionate and thoughtful AS video and know what I am doing next: watching it again ;-) - thankyou so much

[@AmorSciendi]

😊 thank you

[@MrBde2327]

Stellar work mate!

[@AmorSciendi]

Thanks brad

[@arthistorystorytime]

Love this!

[@AmorSciendi]

Ahhh it's that feeling when someone who makes stuff tells you that you make cool stuff!

[@arthistorystorytime]

@@AmorSciendi for sure! You are making cool stuff and you’ve got a lot of it! They’re well spoken and thoughtful analysis. I’ve got plenty to watch now

[@10.6.12.]

Did Peter Breughel use lenses when making his landscapes?

[@willemvandebeek]

Doubt it, why do you think Pieter Brueghel used lenses?

[@10.6.12.]

@willemvandebeek the spectacular panoramic aspect of his paintings that is simelar to what one sees in a convex lense. Plus these lenses give views a circular composition. I noticed this when using the panorama setting on my camera. He immediately came to mind. BTW thanks so much for your site.

[@willemvandebeek]

@@10.6.12.telescopes weren't used until the 17th century, so it should be too early for a medieval painter to use a lens. Just checked when Pieter Brueghel lived, which was to my surprise the 16th century, so now I am not that sure any more... If he used a lens, then he used the absolute latest technology. It could be, I am not certain... Edit: just found a Pieter Brueghel drawing called: "The Painter and The Buyer", where the buyer is wearing glasses! So there were lenses in his day! My mind is blown! 🤯

[@beverlykandraceffinger3764]

Another Q & A for the Art Historians to argue...but I tend to agree with willemvanderbeek (here in the replies) about the use of convex lenses...that, and direct experience in traditional painting for more than 40 years has taught me: Painters have mostly used whatever is available in order to achieve the desired effect. And the figures are VERY small.

[@IliyanBobev]

It's a stretch. Not only this one either. All analysis seems to be exercise of artificially imbuing desired meaning where there might something entirely different. Of course the cart wheels will be the same as the torture ones, where do you think they'd get them from. You can read this any which way you want. You can say the procession is upholding traditional values, something about authority and order, etc. The path is not quite a circle, but a spiral and it's elevating, etc. If the author wants to engage in philosophy, there are more direct, less ambiguous ways to do that.

[@beverlykandraceffinger3764]

I can't fault James Earle for his interpretations-- it's always a stretch, the attempt to understand the ways of other times through the lens of our own. I'm glad for the historical context the author gives to back his ideas. One thing we know for certain: Bruegel's paintings are always filled with visual language (part of their teaching function). And they will always call for interpretation, in this age and all others. That's part of what makes the works so magical.