W / 085

KHM - Rediscovering A Dutch Master
 

Information
Client
Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien
Focus
Concept, Creative Direction, Art Direction, Content Strategy, Frontend Development, Motion Design, Sound Design
Awards
1 x FWA of the day
1 x Awwwards Site of the Day
1 x CCA - Silver
2 x CCA - Bronze

Rediscovering A Dutch Master

We were brought in to create an interactive online experience for the world's first ever major monograph exhibition featuring Pieter Bruegel the Elder, held at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum in 2018.

This ’summit’ of masterpieces is a small miracle. Many of these international loans are so old and fragile that they hardly ever travel, and many of the works on show in the Bruegel exhibition have never before left their hometowns.

However you pronounce his name, the Dutch Master’s idiosyncratic portrayals of everyday medieval life make him one of the most significant painters ever. But how to turn centuries old paintings into a lasting online experience?

Go to website
For the landingpage, we brought Bruegel's paintings to live

The site is built in modules, exploring Bruegel’s work in a variety of ways. We animated wedding scenes, brought Flemish peasants to life to play flute, demonstrated paint restoration x-ray imaging, and built pages to usher users around all of those characters hidden inside Bruegel’s work.

Working together with the curatorial experts of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the final website is an engaging introduction to the legacy of Bruegel.

Thomas Lichtblau Managing Partner & Head of Design

Working eye-to-eye with the curatorial experts of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the final website is an engaging multimedia introduction to the legacy of Bruegel. Despite being created to support a once in a lifetime exhibition, the website lives on as a resource well worth checking out.

To cover all the details of Bruegel's paintings, we implemented interactive Wimmelbilder (busy pictures)
The mosaic technique to extract our color palette from Bruegels paintings

We also commissioned a copyist to create Bruegel style paintings for the exhibition’s branding. She created some original Bruegel-inspired imagery,  which could be used on social media, or as on signage for accessibility notices at the exhibition and at the museum’s ticket shop.

Bruegel style paintings for accessibility, social media & the ticket shop by Brigitte Humpelstetter

The Bruegel Exhibition itself was the biggest success in the history of Vienna’s Art History Museum. Visitors and people who didn’t made it into the exhibition enjoyed the site, getting deeper information about the artist and his paintings. 

Design Leads
Thomas Lichtblau, Matthias Mentasti
Tech Leads
Moriz Büsing, Thomas Ragger
Project Management
Melissa Graf
Design
Manuel Haring, Guillermo Seis
Development
Stefan Kernjak
Development
Typoheads
Motion Graphics
Sound Design
Illustrations
Pieter Bruegel & Brigitte Humpelstetter