The Five Senses (series)

This article is about the paintings by Brueghel and Rubens. For other uses, see Five senses (disambiguation).
Sight, 1617
Hearing, 1617–18
Smell, 1617–18
Taste, 1618
Touch, 1618

The Five Senses is a set of allegorical paintings created at Antwerp in 1617-1618 by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens, with Brueghel being responsible for the settings and Rubens for the figures. They are now in the Prado Museum in Madrid. They are all painted in oils on wood panel, approximately 65 by 110 centimetres (2 ft 2 in × 3 ft 7 in) in dimensions.

The series constitutes one of the best known and most successful collaborations by Brueghel and Rubens, who were close friends.[1][2] The allegorical representation of the five senses as female figures had begun in the previous century, the earliest known examples being the Lady and the Unicorn series of tapestries, which date to around 1500,[3] but Brueghel was the first to illustrate the theme using assemblages of works of art, musical instruments, scientific instruments, and military equipment, accompanied by flowers, game, and fish.[1] His approach was widely copied in later Flemish painting.[2]

  1. ^ a b Ariane van Suchtelen, "8. Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens, Allegory of Taste, in: Anne T. Woollett, Ariane van Suchtelen, et al., Rubens & Brueghel: A Working Friendship, Exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006, ISBN 9780892368471, pp. 90–99, p. 90.
  2. ^ a b Sight, Online gallery, Prado Museum, retrieved 9 September 2014.
  3. ^ Carl Nordenfalk, "The Five Senses in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 48 (1985) 1–22, p. 7.