THE FIVE SENSES
The series of paintings Jan Brueghel "The Elder" and Peter Paul Rubens brought to life.
Between 1617 and 1618, Jan Brueghel “The Elder” and Peter Paul Rubens created the five allegorical paintings inside The Five Senses series. It was a job that the governors of the Spanish Netherlands, Albert VII of Austria and his wife Isabel Clara Eugenia, assigned both artists. Rubens was the one who gave life to the bodies and Brueghel to the rest, the settings where the figures are placed.
In the works, we see a naked woman who’s joined by what we call a putto (little chubby children, sometimes winged, often used in the Renaissance and Baroque period accompanying Venus and also called Cupid). We see this in four paintings: Smell, Sight, Hearing, and Touch. In Taste, we notice there’s a satyr in the scene.
These paintings were not made using a large format (approximately 65 x 110 cm.), making them even more incredible because they are full of tiny minuscule details that are almost impossible to see to the naked eye. Take Sight as an example. The scene takes place in what looks like a cabinet of curiosities, where the artists depict miniature representations of some well-known paintings such as Saint Cecilia by Raphael and an equestrian portrait of Archduke Albert by Rubens himself, scientific instruments, and several Roman busts.
We recognize the “rubensian bodies,” these energetic, vibrant, powerful, curvy, voluptuous figures, an identity sign of Ruben’s work. We also note Brueghel’s signature themes: the excellent technique in representing flowers and still lifes, the architecture of the space, the execution of the fabrics that cover the silhouettes, the landscapes, the urban views, and how they become blurry because of the distance.
Every single one of the works hides a universe of details, of new things to discover each time we look carefully at the paintings. And that can only be done, with this much quality, precision, and excellence, by the hands of two masters like Jan Brueghel, “The Elder,” and Peter Paul Rubens. Two artists who were friends and two of the greatest Flemish painters.
The Sense of Sight (1617)
The Sense of Hearing (1617-1618)
The Sense of Smell (1617-1618)
The Sense of Taste (1618)
The Sense of Touch (1618)
