The Temptation of Saint Anthony
Follower of Pieter Bruegel the Elderc. 1550/1575
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Legends of Anthony Abbot relate how the pious early Christian, forsaking society, journeyed into the wilderness to seek God. Anthony appears twice in this painting; in his foreground retreat, he resists the Devil's manifold temptations. After failing to yield to the evil lures, he is shown again being physically tortured while carried aloft by demons. Yet, the saint was saved by the purity of his soul.
The religious subject is presented in a revolutionary fashion; generations of earlier artists had tended to treat landscape as an unobtrusive backdrop of secondary importance, whereas now the landscape dominates the subject to such an extent that the temptation of Saint Anthony seems only incidental. This change of emphasis marks an important advance toward the development of pure landscape painting, in which Pieter Bruegel the Elder was an instrumental figure. Already, that delight in the natural world is apparent here in the shadowy depths of leafy forests, contrasting with open vistas of waterways, villages, and towns bathed in pearly light.
Perhaps the juxtaposition of a peaceful landscape with the temptations and attacks of demons was a subtle statement by this Bruegel follower on the political and moral brutalities of his time. Possibly Saint Anthony is meant allegorically to represent Everyman caught up in a world gone mad.
More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication _Early Netherlandish Painting_, which is available as a free PDF <u>https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/early-netherlandish-painting.pdf</u>
- Title: The Temptation of Saint Anthony
- Creator: Follower of Pieter Bruegel the Elder
- Date Created: c. 1550/1575
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 58.5 x 85.7 cm (23 1/16 x 33 3/4 in.) framed: 77.8 x 104.8 x 7.6 cm (30 5/8 x 41 1/4 x 3 in.)
- Provenance: Private collection, Brussels. (Robert Frank, London, by 1935);[1] on consigment from 1937 with (M. Knoedler & Co., New York; joint purchase 1945 with (Pinakos [Rudolf Heinemann);[2] purchased 1950 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1952 by exchange to NGA. [1] The corresponding entry in _Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles. Cinq Siècles d'Art_ (Brussels, 1935, no. 151, as Pieter Brueghel the Elder) states that before being acquired by Frank, the painting was in Brussels in the collection of an unnamed aristocrat. On the reverse are: an illegible stamp, possibly an Austrian customs stamp; a paper sticker, "Cinq Siècles d'Art (Bruxelles 1935)"; and a paper sticker, "Exposition De Van Eyck." [2] Knoedler commission book no. 3, p. 87, stock book no. 9, p. 96, and sales book no. 16, p. 251, no. A3127, M. Knoedler & Co. Records, Getty Research Institute copies NGA curatorial files). [3] Both The Baltimore Museum of Art, _An Exhibition of Paintings by Living Masters of the Past_, 1943, no. 9; and Colin Eisler, _Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian_, Oxford, 1977, p. 95; list Countess Montblanc, Belgium, as owner of the painting, but this is otherwise unverified. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2303.
- Rights: CC0
- Medium: oil on panel
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