The Painter and The Buyer

The Painter and The Buyer

Artist	Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Year	1565
Type	pen and ink on brown paper
Dimensions	25.5 cm × 25.1 cm (10.0 in × 9.9 in)
Location	Albertina, Vienna

The Painter and The Buyer is a 1565 pen and ink on brown paper painting by German artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The alternative title is The Artist and The Connoisseur.

The painter is thought to be a self-portrait of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

Content

The artist holds a paint brush in his right hand, on the left past the viewer, presumably to the object he paints A second man looks over his shoulder at the resulting picture. This work is for the viewer, however, face down. Bruegel is limited entirely to the presentation of two dissimilar men: the painter drawn in detail with disheveled hair, bushy eyebrows and unkempt beard, and the more vague outline reproduced viewer behind him with pince-nez, unsightly nose and mouth slightly open.^[1]

Interpretation

In the Middle Ages, artists were fixed in a craft tradition of the clients such as church, aristocracy or the bourgeoisie was later supported. The representation of artists and buyers and artists and connoisseurs reflects already the new humanistic conception of art that the painter makes the subjective opinion of an expert-dependent ^{(Please render this into understandable English)}.^[1] According to Hans East there is a "foolish observer" Quote: ... with stupid open mouth laboriously through the lens of the artist he stares over his shoulder. This is the connoisseur and amateur, as he meets us later in the cycle of Roman antiquarians to Philipp von Stosch^{(Please render this into understandable English)}.^[2]

It is uncertain whether it is for the painter, as is often assumed to be a self-portrait of Bruegel, also conceivable is a portrait of Hieronymus Bosch.^{(Please render this into understandable English)[3]}

References

1. Christian Vöhringer: Pieter Bruegel. 1525/30 – 1569, h.f.ullmann 2007 ISBN 978-3-8331-3852-2 S. 9
2. Hans Ost: Das Komische an der Kunstwissenschaft in: Das Komische in der Kunst Hg. Roland Kanz, Böhlau Verlag 2007 ISBN 978-3-412-07206-3 S. 6. f
3. Rose-Marie und Rainer Hagen: Pieter Bruegel d. Ä. um 1525 – 1569. Bauern, Narren und Dämonen, Taschen Verlag 1999 ISBN 3-8228-6590-7 S. 21 f.