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Hearing
Historical Context
Hearing, painted in 1617 and in the Museo del Prado, is the dedicated hearing panel from the Five Senses series Brueghel created with Peter Paul Rubens for Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella. This panel is filled with musical instruments of every type known in early seventeenth-century Europe: lutes, viols, organs, wind instruments, drums, and bells — a comprehensive inventory of musical sound-making rendered with the precision of a musical encyclopedia. The inclusion of musical notation, songbooks, and singing figures extends the allegory from instrumental to vocal music. Rubens's allegorical figure is shown actively engaged with music-making, framed by Brueghel's extraordinary accumulation of instruments. The panel reflects the court's genuine passion for music — the Archducal court in Brussels was famous for its musical establishment, and this panel functions in part as a painted tribute to that culture.
Technical Analysis
Oil on panel, each musical instrument is rendered with the visual detail of an instrument maker's record: string count on lutes, key arrangement on keyboard instruments, valve configurations on winds. The reflective surfaces of polished wood, metal, and stretched skin are all differentiated through Brueghel's varied paint application. Musical manuscripts and songbooks add paper and ink texture to the material range.
Look Closer
- ◆Individual instruments are rendered with enough precision to identify their specific types — a consort of viols distinct from a lute, a clavichord different from a harpsichord — constituting a visual organology
- ◆Musical notation on open manuscript pages is depicted with legible precision, the black noteheads and stave lines readable as actual musical content
- ◆The Rubens-attributed allegorical figure is shown in active music-making — playing or listening — her bodily engagement with sound making visible the invisible experience of hearing
- ◆The acoustic architecture of the room — its reflective surfaces, draperies, and wooden furniture — contributes to the painting's implicit account of how sound behaves in an enclosed space
