Maarten Bassens – författare

One of the greatest Netherlandish artists, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525/30–1569) is best known today for his paintings of peasant life. Yet it was above all through his exceptional graphic work that he achieved widespread fame during the 16th century. This luxurious book offers readers the opportunity to get up close and personal with Bruegel’s famous prints. Published as part of this special Bruegel year, it accompanies the exhibition at the Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, which is renowned as a pioneer in Bruegel scholarship and holds an unparalleled collection of the artist’s graphic work.

Van Hemessen & Father brings a forgotten family of artistic pioneers back into the spotlight, thereby rewriting the story of the Antwerp Renaissance from a surprising perspective: that of a painter’s studio where father and children worked together, experimented, and left their mark on art history. The book serves as the catalogue for the exhibition of the same name at the Snijders&Rockoxhuis in Antwerp, which, in a modified form, will have a second venue at the National Gallery in London. The focus is on daughter Catharina van Hemessen, the earliest Southern Netherlandish Renaissance painter of whom signed works have survived. She painted as a woman in a man’s world, signed her work with self-assurance and garnered international admiration from art connoisseurs even in her own time. Her work bears witness to artistic finesse and intellectual independence. Her father, Jan Sanders van Hemessen, is regarded as a key figure in the artistic transition from Quinten Massijs to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, with an artistic output that hovered somewhere between medieval mysticism and humanist realism. In the bustling Antwerp of the 16th century, he developed into an influential master with a thriving studio.