Marten van Cleve

Marten van Cleve was principally a genre painter, who specialized in peasant scenes and landscapes. Only about five of his works are signed and properly documented. He depicted predominantly low-life scenes of peasant weddings and dances, kermisses, brawling peasants and soldiers and plundering soldiers, which show his debt to the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. As the artist only left few signed works, the attribution of works to him has been difficult and several attributions have been rejected in recent years. Even the attributions by Dr. Klaus Ertz in his catalogue raisonné of Marten van Cleve's paintings and drawings published in 2014 have been questioned.

His oldest authenticated work is the Farm interior with important visitors (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), which was included in the 1659 inventory of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria. It is regarded as a youth work and shows the large kitchen of a farm. A couple from the city are in the kitchen to visit their child which they have entrusted to a wet nurse. The work, which is probably dated to around 1555–1560, shows the influence of Frans Floris in its fluid brush stroke. The choice of subject matter was likely influenced by Pieter Aertsen's peasant scenes from the period 1550–1560. Unlike Aertsen, van Cleve's treatment of space is more modern and his work is free of the influence of the Mannerism of the Flemish Romanists who were inspired by contemporary Italian art. The influence of Pieter Bruegel the Elder is not yet visible in this early work.

Van Cleve came under the influence of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's work in the 1560s. It is a certain resemblance with the work of Bruegel (particularly in the numbers of figures depicted), which has led to the often unjustifiable categorization of van Cleve as a follower of Bruegel. He was, however, never an imitator of that master. He took from Bruegel certain subjects and peasant types but was not interested in following some of the reactionary aspects of Bruegel's work such as the return to Hieronymus Bosch's surrealism and Joachim Patinir's world landscapes. On the whole van Cleve's scenes are descriptive rather than allegorical. Van Cleve attempted to correct or modernize Bruegel by a higher level of interest in realism. He also depicted his scenes from a lower viewpoint than Bruegel. Another confirmed authentic work is the Slaughtered ox (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), which is monogrammed with 'M(v)G' in ligature and dated 1566. It is quite similar to a work of a Slaughtered pig by Joachim Beukelaer. While Beuckelaer's work is clearly a still life, van Cleve's composition is a genre work which emphasizes the anecdotal and genre aspects of the work. Van Cleve's composition may also have an allegorical meaning. A little boy sitting on the threshold of the door is blowing a bubble. The bubble is in fact the bladder of the ox, at the time a children's toy. It is possible that the bubble-blowing boy is a reference to the homo bulla motive, the idea that life is just a bubble that only lasts a very short time. The dead ox itself is a reminder of death and is thus linked to the 'memento mori' idea, the notion that humans should remember that they are mortal. Together with the Carnival in a village with beggars dancing dated 1579 (Hermitage Museum), the Slaughtered ox shows that van Cleve preferred a broad and free brushstroke. In the Carnival in a village with beggars dancing van Cleve has also used various mot