Pieter Aertsen

Pieter Aertsen is famous as a painter of the very earliest still lifes. His scenes from daily life with their peasant merrymakers (preceding those of Pieter Breughel) also enjoy a certain reputation. The Netherlandish Yearbook for History of Art 40 makes the usual comments in relationship to this idea. Should we suspect a hidden meaning behind those early still lifes? And are the scenes with their peasant merrymakers actually an admonition in regard to licentious behaviour? This book supplies new arguments in the discussion of these questions. In this book, the contributing authors from the Netherlands and the United States focus on the problems related to Pieter Aertsen and his contemporaries. For the first time, a richly illustrated book entirely devoted to this fascinating artist has been published.