COMPTON VERNEY.- Bruegel to Rembrandt: Drawing Life, Sketching Wonder features works by 50 different artists including exceptional – yet little known – works by the two giants of the Northern Renaissance and Dutch Golden Age, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1527-1569) and Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669). Many of the works in the show are rarely ever on public display, due to light restrictions.

The exhibition includes 64 remarkable drawings from the 16th and 17th centuries travelling to the UK from Brussels, including those by world-renowned masters such as Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678), Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634), Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9-1682) and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). 50 drawings have never been displayed in the UK before and 5 have never previously left Belgium.

The show includes the full range of types of drawings - from fully worked up watercolours and detailed ink studies, to more immediate sketches from life or from the studio that give a sense of the artist's mind at work. It demonstrates that drawing is the most immediate art form, offering a way for us to peer over the artist's shoulder 500 years later, as they depict scenes and situations which we can still relate to today - a snoozing spaniel, a woman combing her hair, fixing her earrings or sleeping in a mess of sheets, relaxing with a drink, admiring a fine landscape closer to home or imagining faraway lands.

The exhibition shows the complex layering of reality and imagination that can be teased out of these spectacular artworks and the growing interest in realism that began to take place in this period as artists increasingly drew the world beyond their studios ‘from life’. From local landscapes and views of villages and city life to religious and mythological tales and depictions of the world beyond the Netherlands, artists grappled with how to represent the changing world around them, navigating shifting belief systems (or religious convictions) and developing conceptions of national identity. The selected works also reveal how Dutch and Flemish artists interpreted the world around them during a period of massive religious, social and political change, migration and colonial expansion.

Among the masterpieces is the drawing of Prudence by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, part of one of his most famous series showing the Seven Virtues. This incredibly detailed drawing moves away from the master’s connections to the devilish depictions of Hieronymus Bosch (died 1516) to focus on the scenes of everyday peasant life for which Bruegel was so famous. Then, as now, people look for a sense of control in times of uncertainty – preparing for harder days, these peasants store food and money, repair dilapidated buildings, and gather firefighting equipment. It is being shown alongside two prints after designs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, published in the late 1550s and on loan from the Ashmolean to give context to the artist’s drawing.
Another exhibition highlight travelling from Brussels is a beautiful double-sided sketch by Rubens - one side made in preparation for a religious painting, one for a mythological scene – providing an insight into his practice (reusing paper that was at hand to capture new ideas) and the key role drawing played in his work. There is also a drawing after a Tintoretto painting to which Rubens has added his own ‘improvements’.

Two sparingly sketched, but expressive, tronies by Rembrandt as well as a beautiful scene of an elderly woman and younger woman or girl walking together raise interesting questions about when Rembrandt drew from life and when he relied on the rich repository in his head.

The drawings from Brussels has been complemented by loans of paintings, prints and drawings from other UK collections including the National Gallery, the Royal Collection Trust, the Ashmolean, Dulwich Picture Gallery and Sir John Soane’s Museum.

Other highlights include: A painting by one of Rembrandt’s most favoured pupils, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1621-1674), Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well, (1661, National Gallery), which as been reunited with the artist’s preparatory drawing for the work in the RMFAB’s collection for the first time. Frans Post’s (1612-1680) painting A Village in Brazil, (1652, lent by His Majesty The King from the Royal Collection), provides fascinating context for a rare drawing by the artist showing enslaved people labouring at a sugar press, made whilst Post was working in Dutch Brazil. This can be seen alongside beautiful drawings by Maria Sybilla Merian (1647-1717) – an important female artist and scientist who recorded extraordinary insects in Dutch Suriname, also lent by His Majesty The King from the Royal Collection.

A stunning early painting by Aelbert Cuyp (1620-1691), River Landscape, (c. 1640, Dulwich Picture Gallery), connects beautifully with a drawing by the artist from the same period. An exquisitely illustrated Flemish Book of Hours, from the 16th-century, illuminates the relationship between prayer books and the depiction of everyday country life across the Netherlands in this period.

“Bruegel to Rembrandt reveals the magic of drawing, as both an artistic tool and a means of storytelling,” explains Curator Jane Simpkiss “Equipped with just ink and chalk, these artists captured life in all its beauty, struggle and complexity during a period of extraordinary social, political and religious change.

“Look closely and you’ll see not just technical brilliance, but the imagination behind each stroke. Often combining elements from the real world, with imaginative details based in history or fantasy, these drawings offer fascinating artistic interpretations of a changing world, while taking us on an incredible journey into the minds of the Old Masters.”