PRIVATE EYE: Four Dutch 16th century paintings are ready for exploration and study.
TALLINN - The international and interdisciplinary research project “Tracing Bosch and Bruegel: Four Paintings Magnified,” aims to discover the origin and the inventor of the composition, the date, place and author of each individual repetition of the composition in a close collaborative work of conservators, conservation scientists and art historians.
This is an exciting pan-European art detective scenario investigating four Netherlands paintings from the 16th century. The busy compositions all present ‘Christ chasing the moneylenders from the temple’ and reuse popular iconography influenced by the famous painters Hieronymous Bosch (1450–1516) and Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526/30–1569).
The paintings are full of interesting stories, scary characters, and esoteric symbols, for the viewer to explore and discover. They also provide an opportunity to look into the 16th-century artist’s studio, and the techniques and materials used.
“Tracing Bosch and Bruegel” brings together professionals from four Institutions in three European countries: The Kadriorg Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia; The National Gallery of Copenhagen, Denmark; The University of Glasgow in collaboration with Glasgowlife (the Glasgow Museums and Art Gallery), Scotland.
“These paintings, filled with various activities, are brimming with interesting scenes, strange characters and esoteric symbols, which deserve to be discovered and examined,” says Kadi Polli, director of the Kadriorg Art Museum. “The paintings also provide an opportunity to look into the studio of a 16th century artist and to become familiar with the techniques and materials used to complete works of art at that time.”
The ongoing process of the research will be presented via an innovative multimedia program. This will offer a rare opportunity to see ‘below the images’ and discover the complex creative processes and imaginative storytelling within the paintings, as well learning more about the challenging process of preserving our cultural heritage.
The research detectives – art historians, conservators and scientists - use Technical Art History, a new and exciting approach which combines art historical and conservation research with scientific analysis.
They investigate why the four works use the same scene and yet look so different. How were they made, by whom and when? Who would buy or order these works? Is a copy really worth it? How did they end up in four different locations? And of course they will try to unravel all the stories presented in these fascinating paintings, taking the viewer back to the 16th century, into the artist’s studio and to the stories told.
In the exhibition, the paintings will be displayed alongside interactive content illustrating the technical analyses undertaken on each painting, as well as information about their genesis, relation to the art of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the encrypted morals the paintings communicate. Visitors will also be able to relive the complex journey that the paintings’ materials once took, almost half a millennium ago: from Prussian forests to the artists’ studios in Antwerp; from the studios to residences, guilds and places of worship, to art collections, art dealers and the museums and collections across Europe where the works now reside.
Join in the investigation and find out how all these questions are answered, artist’s practice discovered and stories revealed.
The exhibition will be open to visitors at the Kadriorg Art Museum till March 4, 2012.
Opening hours:
Wed: 10:00–20:00, Last admission 19:30
Thu-Sun: 10:00–17:00, Last admission 16:30
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