In 1565 Peter Bruegel the Elder was commissioned to create a series of paintings for a dining room in Antwerp. The Images, charting the course of a year, changed the way we view the world through art. Landscape had previously been a decorative backdrop to dramas both sacred and profane but in Bruegel’s hands the landscapes and our interaction with it became the focus. Looking at the paintings such as The Return of the Herd, Hunters in the Snow and The Gloomy Day this lecture explores how Bruegel pioneered a whole new way of thinking about the environment and the individual places within a shifting cosmos.
Gavin Plumley, a welcome returning lecturer, is a writer and broadcaster who appears on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 and contributes to newspapers, magazines and concert and opera programmes worldwide. He lectures widely about the culture of Central Europe. Recent appearances include Klimpt and The Kiss in cinemas worldwide and talks for the Hay and Cheltenham Festivals, The Royal Opera House National Gallery, the National Trust, the National Theatre, the British Museum and the V & A. His first book A Home for all Seasons is out now.