The Gloomy Day

The Gloomy Day is a painting of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The 118 x 163 cm oil painting on oak emerged in 1565 as one of six years images, five of which have been preserved. It is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna Room 10 ( Inv. No. GG 1837)

The painting

The content and design

The viewer looks from an elevated position on the events in early paintings as Bruegel common. The foreground is painted in warm shades of brown, while the background appears in cold greens, blues and grays, so that the depth is increased. In windless foreground people are seen with seasonal usual activities, such as the cutting of willow branches. Also, customs and festivals are indicated: one of the children is wearing a paper crown, a reference to the Feast of the Three Kings, another eating a waffle, a carnival pastries. In the bay estuary, however, there is fierce storm at sea and ships can capsize. Links stands on a mighty mountains, located in a large castle. The emerging in the foreground trees stabilize the troubled composition.

Design and interpretation

The view is not a real place, but a so-called world landscape, gathered in the characteristics of different parts of the world are: Here is a northern bay, where an alpine high mountains. Bruegel had repeatedly mountains integrated into his pictures, although this did not correspond to his Flemish homeland. People seem small and marginalized.

Background

The picture was taken mid-16th century during the so-called " Little Ice Age ". The average temperature dropped by about 1.5 degrees across Europe and caused rows of cool summers and cold winters. So it was due to fungal infestation often crop failures, but also by severe weather such as storms or hail. On the seashores increased storm surges.

History and classification

For Bruegel's time, there were not four but six seasons in the Netherlands: early spring, spring, early summer, mid-summer, autumn and winter. In 1565 made ​​on behalf of the Dutch art collector Niclaes Jonghelinck, gelange the series already in 1594 as a gift for Archduke Ernst in Habsburg possession. Two more pictures The Hunters in the Snow (Winter) and The Return of the Herd (Autumn ) belong to the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. The hay harvest ( early summer) is located in the Palais Lobkowitz in the Prague Castle and the grain harvest ( mid-summer ) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The spring image was lost → The pictures of the seasons