MICROSTORY OF ART ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM The Last Bruegel

(24.3.2023) This is meant to recall the odd attributional history of a painting in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna (not on display, currently), the painting of a storm at sea that had been seen (and somehow still seems to be seen by some) as a work by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, until (although), in the 1980s, and with the help of dendrochronology, the attribution to Joos de Momper was established. But somehow this attribution was never fully established, which also sheds light on the fact that the discipline of art history, which, today, seems to have little interest in problems of attribution at all, also is lacking a memory as to such problems of attribution (and the history such problems have), with the result that there is not only a mess (and not clarity, as to attribution), and with the result that the same mistakes are done and redone again and again, and with the effect that people who have contributed to solving problems of attribution are not recognized and do not get the appreciation they deserve.
The story I am telling here involves the role of a poet and art historian who recently died (in February of this year): Klaus Demus who is also known to have been a friend of poet Paul Celan and his wife; but, as it seems to be less known, Demus was also a Bruegel scholar, and a Bruegel scholar with the sensibility of a writer (and these are the ones desperately needed), a Bruegel scholar in the position of being a Kustos at the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna for many years. Klaus Demus contributed to Bruegel scholarship with the sensibility of a writer, and with an interest for attributional problems (the history of connoisseurship is rich of such characters who have this ›literary‹ side, and the history of connoisseurship is rich due to the existence of such characters). It is a strange coincidence that I stumbled over a book on Flemish painting in the museum of Vienna in a second hand bookshop, weeks ago, and that I opened it now, without any intention, to find this story of the Last Bruegel, as told by Demus (in 1989). And I am reconstructing now that story from my point of view, and with the case of the ›Last Leonardo‹ in mind. The Storm at Sea was not referred to as the last work by Bruegel by everyone, but for some it had been, as Demus says: Bruegel’s »last word«. And we will see what will come to light here with this story.

1) Origins of a Bruegel Attribution

If the attribution to Pieter Bruegel had been a mistake (and much, actually everything, points to it having been a mistake) it was a mistake by modern Bruegel scholarship at the origins of modern Bruegel scholarship, and by the luminaries of Bruegel scholarship. Demus (in the 1989 book) is too polite to name them. And this is a problem, because one does not want to name people who are responsible for mistakes (this is disagreeable finger-pointing), but somehow the problems have to be assessed, named and solved. And perhaps this can be done without finger-pointing, but I am finding – this may be enough – the names in the Bruegel monograph by Gotthard Jedlicka (see below), and this is why I am saying that luminaries are involved. A hypothesis, due to the role of luminaries, of opinion-leaders, turned into a conviction of many, and many saw and described the Storm at Sea as a work by Bruegel. This does not say that all that was said is worthless today. Not at all. Many observations may be useful and valuable, also in the light of the re-attribution of the painting. But to see that, and to assess what may still be valuable observation, one would had to know about the re-attribution and to accept it, replacing old narratives with narratives that also may be hypothetical, but are narratives that stand.

2) The Problem and the Fate of Re-Attributing

What happened was that the painting was examined by the museum of Vienna, and that dendrochronology was applied. With the result, as Demus says, that the tree of which the panel was made, had been still standing at the time Bruegel the Elder died. If such results are correct (and one would check them, if one could), this means that Bruegel cannot be the author of that picture. This does not say that, perhaps, he may have something to do with it, indirectly, but he is not the author (actual maker) of that picture. And whoever does accept that scholarship is based on the distinction of true and false would have to accept that result.
The re-attribution, however, was not based on dendrochronology alone. This technique helped to falsify the Bruegel attribution, but to re-attribute the picture one had to adapt and to accept the hypothesis of a young Swedish scholar, K. Boström, and to refute the luminaries of Bruegel scholarship. And while the former might seem not to be such a big problem, the latter certainly is a problem, because, if opinion-leaders are proved wrong, many, many followers are wrong as well, and too many, and also institutional interests are at stake . With the result that, probably, the collective that is responsible, the scientific community that is, tends rather to ignore what happened, to suppress what exactly had happened, and to proceed as if nothing (or just little, just routine) had happened. The ethos of scholarship, which is embodied, in the framework of our story, by Klaus Demus, would actually require everything that had been written would be re-read in the light of the new insights, and that consequences would be drawn. But it seems, as it seemed to Demus in 1989, and as it seems to me in 2023, that this did not really happen. Certainly there seemed to be a new consensus, sort of, that the Storm at Sea was actually a work by Joos de Momper, but there was not a change of paradigm that really established this new consensus on the basis of what one did know now. And this may have or have not also to do with the position of Klaus Demus, who, perhaps, by academic art historians was not seen as one of them (I don’t know that, but I suspect that this might have been the case), but rather as a curator who actually was also a poet, and who advocated a young Swedish scholar and not the actual luminaries of the academe. Demus, it has to be stressed, was, on some level, the representative of the museum who accepted and who tried to establish a new attribution, although (as some have it), it was actually not his attribution or re-attribution alone, but rather one he tried to establish. With mixed results.

3) Re-Reading Attributional History and Drawing Some Lessons

Demus asked many questions in his text for the 1989 book, expressing the view that re-reading what had been written on the Storm at Sea was to be confronted with an odd chapter of scholarship. Perhaps one will not answer all the questions in the same way as Demus, who establishes a kind of antagonism between ›what they did see‹ and ›what we are (or I am seeing) now‹. It seems to me that a full clarification of the case would encompass a study of iconographical motifs that were passed from Bruegel, father, to his sons, and a study of what, perhaps, other painters (like Joos de Momper), painters that, perhaps, were under the influence of such tradition, made of such motifs in their own right. The result of such study might be a more complex narrative that, more decidedly would replace an old one that simply had been too simple (and also false). One does, and one did, far too often, simply attribute pictures to authors due to some isolated similarities. What is needed, instead, is the more systematic study of what a painter shares with whom exactly. And this means to investigate in all directions. And if it shows that there are similarities to be found in all directions, one has to follow all of these insistingly. Instead just the one one likes to be true (or the luminaries have found to be true). This is true for Bruegel scholarship. As it is true for Leonardo scholars.

Selected Literature:
Gotthard Jedlicka, Pieter Bruegel. Der Maler in seiner Zeit, Erlenbach-Zürich 1938 [p. 438];
Arnout Balis etc., Flämische Malerei im Kunsthistorischen Museum Wien, Zurich 1989 [pp. 102-103]

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