Bruegel/Hidden Images

On April 6th, 2006, I purchased at Christies Important Old Masters

Painting Auction  "Circle of Peter Brueghel the Younger, Allegory

of Spring, oil on panel".  On the back of the panel are three wax

seals with coats of arms, as well as, a label reading Collection

of Prince Esterhazy, Budapest.  It had been in the collection of a

South American family since 1949.

 Approximately two weeks after acquiring the Brueghel, I started

noticing strange anamolies in the panel/painting.  First of all

there was an odd incongruous grid system raised on the panel.

After careful observation and analysis, I started noticing words

written on the panel.  After awhile, those words became the

outline of figures and faces on the panel.  By shining and shaking

a raking light (flashlight) on the panel at eye level, thus

mimicing a strobe light, a different image other than the original

visible painting begins to emerge.  Further, at different

distances from the panel, different images appear.  Thus there are

at least 4 different images (paintings) painted on the panel,

depending on your distance from the panel.  At first I shined the

raking light in a dark room, but after months of experimentation,

it seems the images are clearer with the lights on in the room,

all but the ones shining directly down on the painting, the ones

that would be considered the correct way to see the original or

outer image on the panel.  When I was looking at the painting from

very close or about 1 foot away, it was blurry to me because I

need to wear reading glasses.  The blurriness is what enables me

to see the images (the new images are clear to me).  They are

painted out of focus.  In other words, with reading glasses so the

outer image is perfectly clear, the other images disappear.  The

same goes when I am standing far from the painting.  In that case,

the outer visible image is clear to me without glasses and I

cannot see the hidden images.  When I put the reading glasses on

and look at the painting from a distance everything is blurry

again and I can now see the hidden images again clearly.  The old

masters had some sort of optical or lense device to hide the

images.  Also, the panel is slightly bowed or warped inward which

forms a concave (convex?) mirror.  The ground under the painting

is made with a lead white paint which may figure into the process

by reflecting what is underneath outwards.  The process is similar

to anamorphic art, however, you do not need to be at an

exaggerated angle to see what I m referring to.  The only written

documentation I can find to possibly explain what I am seeing is a

little anecdote to the life of Albrecht Durer.  Apparently, in

1506, Durer went to Bologna to hopefully find someone to teach him

the "secret perspective of Leonardo DaVinci".  It was being taught

by a friend of DaVinci.  Durer supposedly wrote about his findings

in "History of Measurement".  To support my hypothesis, I figure

Brueghel must have left clues to show future generations how to

see his hidden images.  In fact he did.  I have found two clues in

his paintings.  One is in the  drawing entitled the artist and the

connoisseur by Peter Brueghel the elder.  The connoisseur is

wearing a pair of spectacles.  Also, in the Adoration of the Magi

by Peter Brueghel the Elder, again one of the main figures in the

painting is wearing spectacles.

Abraham Ortelius, the 16th century cartographer, friend to Peter

Brueghel the Elder, said in his epitaph on his friend that "Peter

Brueghel  paints the unpaintable  and often paints a picture

beneath his painting".  Todays critics have taken that to mean

that there are hidden meanings in his paintings.  They are

misinterpreting Ortelius.  He was being literal.  There are

paintings beneath his paintings.