The Allegory of Sight (1618), was painted by Jan Brueghel the Elder. It was one of four works of art; each based one of the senses. Jan Brueghel the Elder was born in 1568 and died from cholera, in 1625: he was of Flemish origin and the son of Pieter Brueghel, another maestro of artistry. The Allegory of Sight was oil on canvas, a very multifaceted and intricate painting, burgeoning with vitality, exaggeration, fancy and vision. What seems like a hoarder's perspective of history is in reality, just an accurate depiction of his times; an amalgamation of myth and actuality. Jan B. lived and thrived in the late Renaissance, where innovative styles of art proliferated, embellished by breakthroughs and new techniques. One could only envisage that this, environment of perpetual metamorphosis and evolution, would be the muse for Brueghel, amongst many other artistes’ art, and more distinctly, for The Allegory of Sight. What I mean by this is that, his painting must have echoed his circumstances, his milieu, his era: The Renaissance. Correlations between elements in his art and life during this epoch are predominantly blatant, although some emerge more obscured than others. The individuals, the technicalities, the mythos and imagery: it was all about what was going on in the Renaissance: the objects are allegorical. They are figurative, representative of something, sometimes even metaphorical.
Take the unclothed Venus as an example: she sits in this painting, perhaps cherishingly contemplating her son, cupid. Some distinctive features here are the fact that cupid has wings, as well as the mythical derivation of these two figures. Venus was a Roman Goddess, an emblem of love, beauty and fecundity. Fundamentally, she was a mythically comparable to Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess. During the glorious period of the Renaissance, artists acquired the autonomy to use their ingenuity and artistic acumen to commence to draw and paint more secular scenes. A painter could now prefer a peasant to a prince and an angel over Jesus for his works. Artists like Botticelli galvanized themselves and their ideas with Greek and Roman mythology. Paintings like La Primavera or Venus Anadyomene are centered on a more folkloric/mythic essence. This may be a substantial indicator as to: when the painting was made and the techniques and elements that were prosperous at the time. Venus might also be symptomatic of the independence in art happening in this era. Cupid, her son, is the god of desire and erotic love. He has wings, a distinguishing attribute that most individuals would not have, for the simple reason that it’s not possible, and yet… here he is evidently seen with angel wings. That signifies the opportunity and option for whimsy and the inconceivable in art. Also, you can effortlessly perceive the parallel between the two figures in this canvas: emblems of love, desire, affection, and fertility. This may be an illustrative way of indicating the foremost themes in art or life during the Renaissance. How painters, brimming with the yearning to charge their art with this new, profane, numinous, mystical, fictitious sensuality worked with representational figures to express this.