Jan Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Elder (/ˈbrɔɪɡəl/ BROY-gəl,[1][2] US also /ˈbruːɡəl/ BROO-gəl;[3][4] Dutch: [ˈjɑm ˈbrøːɣəl] ⓘ; 1568 – 13 January 1625) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman.

[6] Brueghel represented the type of the pictor doctus, the erudite painter whose works are informed by the religious motifs and aspirations of the Catholic Counter-Reformation as well as the scientific revolution with its interest in accurate description and classification.

It is believed that after the death of his mother in 1578, Jan, together with his older brother Pieter Brueghel the Younger and sister Marie, went to live with their grandmother Verhulst, who was by then widowed.

During his time in Rome Jan Brueghel became acquainted with Hans Rottenhammer, a German painter of small highly finished cabinet paintings on copper.

[7] In the mid-1604 Brueghel visited Prague, the main location of the court of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, who promoted artistic innovation.

[7] After his appointment in 1606 as court painter to the Archduke and Duchess Albrecht and Isabella, sovereigns of the Spanish Netherlands, the artist was present in Brussels for periods in 1606, 1609, 1610 and 1613.

Jan Brueghel the Elder achieved a superb technical mastery, which enabled him to render materials, animals and landscapes with remarkable accuracy and a high degree of finish.

For instance, in the early collaborative effort The Return from War: Mars Disarmed by Venus Rubens overpainted most of the lower-right corner with grey paint so he could enlarge his figures.

[26] Brueghel's obsession with classifying the world was completely in line with the encyclopedic tastes of the court in Brussels as is demonstrated by their large art collection of predominantly Flemish paintings, menagerie of exotic species and extensive library.

Borromeo requested the painting to respond to the destruction of images of the Virgin in the preceding century and it thus combined both the cardinal's interests in Catholic reform and the arts.

An example of a collaborative garland painting made by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Rubens is the Madonna in Floral Wreath (1621, Alte Pinakothek).

[18] The medallion in the centre is traditionally believed to depict Cybele, the ancient Phrygian goddess of the earth and nature as it was described as such in 1774 when it was catalogued in the collection of William V, Prince of Orange in The Hague.

By introducing greater naturalism in his Alpine mountain settings, his father had expanded on the world landscape tradition that had been founded mainly by Joachim Patinir.

Pieter the Elder also developed the village and rural landscape, placing Flemish hamlets and farms in exotic prospects of mountains and river valleys.

He used the surrounding landscapes as the stage for the crowds of anecdotal, colourfully dressed peasants who engage in various activities in the market, the country roads and during the rowdy kermesses.

His river views were certainly known to painters working in Haarlem, including Esaias van de Velde and Willem Buytewech, whom Brueghel may have met there when he accompanied Peter Paul Rubens on a diplomatic mission to the Dutch Republic in 1613.

Although on occasion inhabited by humans and animals, these forest scenes contain dark recesses, virtually no open sky and no outlet for the eye to penetrate beyond the thick trees.

Works in this genre are typically crawling with numerous animals from exotic and native European species who coexist harmoniously in a lush landscape setting.

The novelty of Brueghel's paradise landscapes lies not only in the impressive variety of animals, which the artist studied mainly from life but also in their presentation as both figures of a religious narrative and as subjects of a scientific order.

While in his early paradise landscapes Brueghel seems to have based some of his renderings of the animals on works by other artists, he later could rely on studies from life of the various species in the menagerie of the court in Brussels.

Hoefnagel's approach to the representation of the animal world combined natural historical, classical, emblematic, and biblical references, which incorporated the various species into the categories of the four elements of the cosmos: earth, water, air, and fire.

He also collaborated with Hendrick van Balen on various allegorical compositions such as a series on the Four Elements as well as an Allegory of Public Welfare (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest).

This is demonstrated in his composition Allegory of Fire; Venus in the Forge of Vulcan of which there are various versions of which one (Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Rome) is a collaboration with Hendrick van Balen and another (Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan) is attributed to Jan Brueghel alone.

Other mythological themes appearing in his hell scenes included the image of Juno visiting Hades and Orpheus in the Underworld from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

The paintings are heavy with symbolism and allegory and are a reflection of the intellectual preoccupations of the age, including the cultivation of personal virtue and the importance of connoisseurship.

During this early 'encyclopaedic' phase, the genre reflected the culture of curiosity of that time, when art works, scientific instruments, naturalia and artificialia were equally the object of study and admiration.

[45] The compositions depicted in The Archdukes Albert and Isabella Visiting a Collector's Cabinet are predominantly allegories of iconoclasm and the victory of painting (art) over ignorance.

By turning toward Albert and Isabella (taking the position of the sun), the sunflower symbolises the way that the arts were able to grow and blossom in the light and warmth of princely patronage.

[50] An example of a singerie by Jan Brueghel is the Monkeys feasting, which dates from his early years as an artist (private collection, on long-term loan to the Rubenshuis, Antwerp).

While the composition shows the monkeys engaged in all kinds of mischief, it includes a painting above the door jamb, which is a work from Rubens' studio, called "Ceres and Pan".