Editing Jan Brueghel the Elder (section)

===Ideological context===
[[File:Jan Brueghel (I) - Studies of animals (donkeys, cats and monkeys.jpg|thumb|''Studies of animals'']]
Jan Brueghel's work reflects the various ideological currents at work in the Catholic Spanish Netherlands during his lifetime. The Catholic [[Counter-Reformation]]'s worldview played an important role in the artist's practice. Central in this worldview was the belief that the earth and its inhabitants were revelations of a supreme being, God. Artistic representation of, and scientific investigation into, that divine revelation was encouraged and valued. Breughel's friend and patron, the Counter-Reformation Cardinal Federico Borromeo, particularly emphasised the beauty and diversity of the animal world. In his ''I tre libri delle laudi divine'' (published only posthumously in 1632) Borromeo wrote: 'Looking then with attentive study at animals' construction and formation, and at their parts, members, and characters, can it not be said how excellently divine wisdom has demonstrated the value of its great works?'<ref name=kolb47/> Jan Brueghel's realistic depictions of nature in all its various forms, in flowers, landscapes, animals, etc., was clearly in line with the view that study of God's creation was an important source for knowing God.
[[File:Jan I Brueghel-Caste of Mariemont mg 1707.jpg|thumb|left|''The Castle of Mariemont'']]

Brueghel's era also saw a growing interest in the study of nature through empirical evidence as opposed to relying on inherited tradition. The increased access to new animals and exotic plants from the newly discovered territories played an important role in this intellectual exploration. This resulted in the appearance of the first scholarly catalogues and encyclopedias, including the illustrated natural history catalogues of 16th-century naturalists [[Conrad Gesner]] and [[Ulisse Aldrovandi]]. Their major contribution to natural history was the creation of an extensive system of description of each animal. Gesner placed all the species within four general categories: [[quadruped]]s, birds, fish and serpents. He described animals in alphabetical order and in terms of nomenclature, geographic origins, mode of living and behaviour. Aldrovandi took another approach and did not order animals alphabetically. He relied on visual resemblance as the classifying factor. For example, he grouped the horse together with analogous animals, such as the donkey and mule, and separated species into categories, such as birds with webbed feet and nocturnal birds.
[[File:File-Bruegel d. Ä., Jan -The Senses of Hearing, Touch and Taste - 1618FXD.jpg|thumb|''The Senses of Hearing, Touch and Taste'']]

Brueghel's works reflect this contemporary encyclopedic interest in the classification and ordering of all of the natural world. This is evidenced in his flower pieces, landscapes, allegorical works and gallery paintings. In his paradise landscapes, for instance, Brueghel grouped most of the species according to their basic categories of biological classification, in other words, according to the main groups of related species that resemble one another, such as birds or quadrupeds. He further classified most of them into subdivisions consisting of similar morphological and behavioural characteristics.<ref name=kolb47/> His paradise landscapes thus constituted a visual catalogue of animals and birds which fulfilled the role of micro-encyclopedia.

Brueghel's endeavour to represent the world through ordering and classifying its many elements based on empirical observation did not stop with the natural world. In Prague he had acquired knowledge of the large collections of Emperor Rudolf II, which were divided in natural, artificial and scientific objects. Brueghel's allegorical paintings of the four elements and of the five senses reveal the same classifying obsession, using each element or sense to organise natural, man-made instruments and scientific objects. In this skillful union of the areas of art, science, and nature Brueghel demonstrates his mastery of these various disciplines. His paintings serve the same purpose to that of encyclopedic collections, then known as [[cabinets of curiosities]], by linking between the ''mundus sensibilis'' and the ''mundus intelligibilis''. His approach to describing and cataloguing nature in art resembles the distinction natural historians were starting to make between perceptual experience and theoretical knowledge.<ref name=kolb47/>
[[File:Jan Brueghel (I) - Flower Vase.jpg|thumb|upright|''Flower Vase'']]

Brueghel's obsession with classifying the world was completely in line with the encyclopedic tastes of the court in Brussels as is demonstrated by their large art collection of predominantly Flemish paintings, menagerie of exotic species and extensive library.<ref name=kolb47/>