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COLLECTION DETAILS

Hunters in the Snow Hunters in the Snow

17th c./Oil on panel

25.5 x 32.5 cm

On view

Permanent Exhibition: From the Renaissance to the 20th Century – 500 Years of Western Paintings

Exhibition period:Saturday April 12Sunday June 22, 2025

Permanent Exhibition Gallery 2 in the New Wingof Tokyo Fuji Art Museum

Permanent Exhibition: From the Renaissance to the 20th Century – 500 Years of Western Paintings
Exhibition period: Saturday July 12Monday September 15, 2025
Permanent Exhibition Gallery 2 in the New Wing of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum

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SUMMARY

The painting Hunters in the Snow is copied by the artist after the well-known masterpiece (Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien) of his father Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the famous Flemish painter of the 16th century. Copying after his father's works and making variations at the requests of his contemporary art lovers, the artist contributed to disseminate his father’s rare style of painting. On the other hand, due to that he made his original genre paintings in which goblins or grotesque figures appeared, he was nicknamed “Hell Brueghel.” As compared particularly with his father’s original work, there are many differences that can be found between the two paintings. This is partly because there was the limitation of the surface area that he could paint. His work is painted on a small panel, while his father's is larger, measuring 117 cm x 162 cm. The motif representing “winter” is elaborately depicted in his father’s painting, while in this painting, the motif of winter is more simplified, and most of the features are only depicted in simple forms. His father’s original depicts three hunters, fourteen dogs, five persons roasting pork in front of a bistro with a signboard (a typical scene of December, and the process right after slaughtering a pig; it is not a bonfire) and four straight shrubs in the direction of the hunters walking in the close-up view; children who are enjoying the winter plays, such as skating, kolven (a kind of golf), curling, spinning top and sledding using a three-legged stool in the middle ground; and mountains with peaked summits and rock faces exposed from melting snow on the southern slope in the distant view. On the other hand, this copy depicts five hunters, eleven dogs, three persons in front of a bistro without signboard, and two large curved shrubs on the right and left sides of the hunters. The movements of children playing on the ice are barely recognizable, and distant mountains are only simply depicted in white and light blue colors with rough strokes of a brush. In terms of colors, his father’s painting gives an impression of monotonic colors using the limited colors like the Oriental ink paintings, while his painting adds a sense of colors to the entire picture with the red color of the hunter’s clothes and the blue color in middle and distant views which are standing out. Regarding whether this painting depicts a particular landscape, in the past, there were some opinions such as a scene overlooked from the eastern edge of Lake Geneva, or a view of a village in the suburbs of Innsbruck. Rather, it may be appropriate to regard it as an “integrated world landscape” which is characteristic to Brueghel’s paintings. In any case, making typical winter customs into a panoramic visual world, this painting provides a glimpse into a lot of rich and sensitive world of Brueghel, including an attachment to the lives of four seasons, affection for children’s plays, and awe for nature.

ARTIST

Pieter Brueghel the Younger

1564-1638

List of artworks by the same artist

INFORMATION

Exhibiton history

Saturday, January 12 - Saturday, May 4, 2019

500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Shanghai PowerLong Museum (Shanghai, China)

Tuesday, October 23 - Sunday, December 23, 2018

500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tsinghua University Art Museum (Beijing, China)

Saturday, April 4 - Sunday, May 24, 2009

The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Sapporo Art Museum (Hokkaido, Japan)

Friday, January 30 - Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Hokkaido Obihiro Museum of Art (Hokkaido, Japan)

Sunday, October 1 - Sunday, December 3, 2000

Masterpieces of Western Paintings from the Renaissance to the 20th Century National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (Taipei, Taiwan)

Tuesday, October 14 - Sunday, November 30, 1997

Masterpieces of Western Oil Painting from the TFAM Collection Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong, China)

Saturday, November 3 - Sunday, December 2, 1990

Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Art Museum (Yongin-gun, Kyunggi-do, South Korea)

Saturday, September 22 - Sunday, October 21, 1990

Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Gallery (Seoul, South Korea)

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