The Five Senses (pair of paintings) facts for kids

The Senses of Sight and Smell, painted around 1618. This is a copy from about 1620.

The Senses of Hearing, Touch and Taste, painted around 1618. This is also a copy from about 1620.

The paintings called The Five Senses are two large oil paintings. They were created by Jan Brueghel the Elder and other artists around 1617 and 1618. These paintings show the five human senses: sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste. The original paintings were sadly lost in a fire in 1731. But don't worry! Very good copies were made around 1620, and you can see them today at the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain.

What Are "The Five Senses" Paintings?

These special paintings were made in Antwerp, a city in what is now Belgium. At that time, Jan Brueghel the Elder worked for the rulers of the area, Archduke Albert VII and his wife Isabella.

These paintings are called allegorical. This means they use symbols and objects to represent ideas. In this case, they show the five senses. Brueghel was one of the first artists to show the senses by filling a room with many different objects. These objects include artworks, musical instruments, science tools, and even military gear. He also added flowers, animals from hunting, and fish. This way of painting became very popular with artists in the area.

A Bit of History

The city of Antwerp asked for these two paintings to give as a gift to the Archduke and his wife. Twelve of the best artists in the city helped create them. They finished the paintings by October 1618.

In 1619, the paintings were displayed in a castle called Tervuren. Sadly, in 1731, the original paintings were destroyed in a big fire at Coudenberg Palace. Luckily, close copies of the paintings were made by Brueghel and other artists like Gerard Seghers, Frans Francken the Younger, and Joost de Momper. These copies arrived in Spain by 1633. They were kept in royal palaces before becoming part of the Prado Museum when it opened in 1819.

Looking Closely at the Paintings

These two paintings are special because they include copies of other artworks made by the same group of artists from Antwerp.

Sight and Smell

In the painting Sight and Smell, you can see many interesting things. In the background, there are paintings that include The Healing of the Blind. This artwork represents spiritual sight, which is different from physical sight. You can also spot a magnifying glass, which shows physical sight. In the front, there's a telescope. In the back, a hallway filled with artworks leads to an open door, showing nature. Sunlight shines in from above. All these details relate to the sense of sight.

The painting also shows two female figures. The one representing sight is looking at herself in a mirror. A small, winged child, called a putto, holds the mirror for her. The other female figure represents smell. Another putto gives her a bouquet of flowers. A dog in the painting represents a very good sense of smell. You can also see a civet, which is an animal known for its strong smells.

Taste, Hearing, and Touch

In the second painting, Taste, Hearing, and Touch, the main scene shows people having a meal. A person playing a lute and children singing represent hearing. One young woman is gently stroking a mink, which shows the sense of touch. Another woman is about to eat oysters, representing taste.

On the left side of the painting, you can see a clavichord and other musical instruments, all related to hearing. There's also a monkey pulling the hair of a Cupid, which is another way to show touch. The room and the hall in the back also have pictures that relate to these three senses. For example, The Annunciation and Minerva's Visit to Parnassus are about hearing. The Dentist shows touch. And The Punishment of Rich Epulon and The Wedding at Cana are about taste.

The Mystery of the Cockatoo

In The Senses of Hearing, Touch and Taste, there is a Sulphur-crested cockatoo near the woman in the red dress. These birds are originally from Australia. This is a bit of a mystery because the painting was made about 80 years before Europeans usually saw Australian wildlife.

Historians have wondered how Brueghel could have painted a cockatoo at that time. One idea is that a Dutch explorer named Willem Janszoon brought the bird back to the Netherlands in 1611 after his first trip to Australia. This same cockatoo also appears in an earlier painting called Hearing, which Brueghel painted with Peter Paul Rubens.