Hello and welcome to The Courtauld Collection, In Detail.
My name is Ernst Vegelin and I'm the
Head of The Courtauld Gallery. The detail that I would like to share
with you is tucked away in this wonderful painting
of 'the Flight into Egypt', created in 1563 by the great Flemish master
Peter Bruegel the Elder. The painting
offers us an expansive view of a wide river landscape,
overlooked by mountains and great craggy cliffs.
The epic scale of the panorama confounds the small
size of the painting itself; it measures just 37 by 55 centimetres.
This painting is absolutely full of detail,
but let us start here, on the right, where a small drama is taking place.
We see a pollarded tree - two birds are perched undisturbed in its branches.
Fixed to the tree is a small roadside shrine
from which a statue is tumbling. This is the Miracle of the idols.
Although not included in the Bible itself,
this Miracle frequently featured in depictions of the holy family fleeing
from Judea into Egypt soon after the birth of Christ.
The tradition held that false, pagan idols
toppled as the true saviour, the infant Christ,
passed by and we see the child now,
half sheltered in Mary's red cloak. Joseph leads the group on its precarious
journey to escape the clutches of King Herod.
The holy family is traversing a high pass in the mountains
and now seems to be about to start its journey down.
Looking closely to the left, we can make out a group of heavily-laden
travellers, crossing a dangerously narrow footbridge
across a ravine. They serve to remind the viewer of the
extreme difficulty of the holy family's journey.
Further down, in the river valley, details abound
and we can indulge ourselves as armchair travellers.
Several small islands are dotted with buildings of different scale and character.
In the distance we can make out a large village,
punctuated by church spires with boats nearby.
The opposite side of the estuary is more
sparsely populated, but here too a church and houses are visible.
Further back still is an inhospitable rocky island beyond
which the view stretches to the infinity of the horizon.
Aspects of the landscape surely reflect Bruegel's experience of passing through
the Alps on his way to Italy in 1552.
His biographer wrote that he 'swallowed up all those mountains and rocks and upon returning home
spat them out again on canvases and panels'
much like our own of course.
In allowing us to marvel
at the vastness of creation, Bruegel's whole
painting seems to invite the viewer to contemplate God.
The real miracle here
is not so much the quaintly falling idol with which we started, as the boundless
expanse of the world itself.
Is that how early viewers of Bruegel's painting would have enjoyed it?
Well, our painting has had many distinguished owners,
including the artist Peter Paul Rubens, but the identity of perhaps the very
first owner is also known to us.
He was the statesman and collector Cardinal Granvelle who you see here in a portrait
in The Courtauld's collection.
It is surely not too far-fetched to imagine the Cardinal
looking at this painting in the privacy of his study
and recalling his own journeys over the Alps to Rome from Flanders,
and at the same time reflecting on the beauty and diversity of creation
and our place within it.
Thank you very much for listening.