Bruegel’s Paint Application in The Wedding Dance

Abstract

In e Wedding Dance, Bruegel applied the paint in a thin, smooth layer, a method that he typically used in his paintings.181 Rather than relying on a thick layer of paint to cover his dark underdrawing, he seems to have preferred using a thin layer of opaque paint that was densely packed with pigment.182 Although an overall sequence to Bruegel’s paint application is dicult to discern, what is apparent is that he followed the design he laid out in his underdrawing by generally using a paint application method known as painting (or working) in reserve. With this technique, the artist paints certain elements of the composition first and leaves other adjacent areas “in reserve” to be painted later.183 When we view e Wedding Dance flat and at an oblique angle in visible lighting, we can see evidence of this method in the slight paint ridges surrounding various figures and architectural elements.184 Painting in reserve is a distinguishing feature of Bruegel’s painting technique, and we can observe evidence of this method in many of his works, including the Rotterdam Tower of Babel (after 1563), Return of the Herd (1565),185 Hunters in the Snow (1565), Winter Landscape with Bird Trap (1565), e Gloomy Day (1565), Massacre of the Innocents (ca. 1565–67), and Census at Bethlehem (1566).186 Žis method of painting is a thoughtful way to avoid wasting precious materials—and thus money—because the artist did not apply pigments, which were sometimes expensive, in areas where they were not needed.187 However, Oberthaler, as well as Currie and Allart, notes that Bruegel did not always follow this method strictly throughout a whole composition.188 In e Wedding Dance, although he painted in reserve, Bruegel seems to have worked on smaller groups of figures at the same time. He would start by painting the key element on whichever figure he deemed to be the central person in a group. He would then proceed to paint whatever items visually overlap that element. For example, on the basis of how the paint overlaps, we can tell that within the group of figures that includes the bride (person 13), Bruegel painted her carbon black–based dress first.189 Žen within that group (persons 11, 12, 4, 5, 14, and 15), he painted the various elements that adjoin the bride’s dress, such as person 12’s dark sleeve, person 15’s gray-striped fur cu™, and person 4’s now-brown jacket.190 Although these items appear to overlap the dress, the overlapping is only visual; Bruegel in fact painted each color adjacent to the others rather than actually overlaying them. However, the deteriorated condition of the paint layer makes it dicult to discern a more specific order of paint application beyond a general approach of beginning with the central figure in a grouping and then working outward within the group. Že order varies even in each figure grouping, let alone throughout the entire composition.