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Pieter Bruegel the elder

Paintings

Pieter Bruegel the Eder

Old peasant woman

Pieter Bruegel the Eder

Adoration of the Magi

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Ascent to Calvary

Pieter Bruegel the Eder

Peasant Wedding

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Peasant Dance

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Conversion of St Paul

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Penitential sermon of John

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Massacre of the Innocents

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Dulle Griet ( The great Grete), Mad Meg

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The cripple

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The parable of the blind

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
River Landscape with a Sower

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Port of Naples

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Landscape with gallows (dance under the gallows )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Landscape And Temptation of St. Anthony

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Misanthrope

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Peasant and the Nest Robber

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Cockaigne

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Sea Storm

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Suicide of Saul

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Suicide of Saul, Detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The children's games , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Dutch Proverbs

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Dutch Proverbs , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Dutch Proverbs , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Dutch Proverbs , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Dutch Proverbs , detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Dispute Between Carnival and Lent

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Dispute Between Carnival and Lent, Detail

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Fall of the angels

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Triumph of Death

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Tower of Babel

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Tower of Babel

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Tower of Babel

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Census at Bethlehem

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Winter Landscape with Skaters

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Two Monkeys

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Gloomy Day ( February or March )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The grain harvest month ( August)

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Return of the Herd ( October or November )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Cycle of the month pictures scene: Hunters in the Snow ( January )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder

Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery

Pieter Bruegel the Eder

The Wine of Saint Martin's Day

Pieter Bruegel the Eder

The Hay Harvest

Drawings

Pieter Bruegel the Eder

» Elck (Everyone) and Nemo Nobody "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
" Big fish eat the little ones "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Alps

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Alpine landscape

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Alpine landscape

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Alpine landscape

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Alpine landscape

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Alpine landscape with Artist

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Alpine landscape with mules

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Alpine Landscape

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Old peasant woman in profile

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Mule

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
View of Reggio

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Farmer and his wife

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Peasant woman in profile

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Farmer with hoe and basket

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Peasant woman with milk pot

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Peasant Woman and back figure

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Farm boy , back figure

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Mountainous landscape

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Miner

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Buffalo

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Castle in mountainous area

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Castle with round towers , behind a river

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Alchemist

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Blind Beggar

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The donkey in the school

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The painter and art connoisseurs

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The painter and art connoisseurs

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The horse dealer

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The pilgrim

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Fall of the Magician

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Lamentation

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The beekeepers

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The blind

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Temptation of St. Anthony

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The two mountain giants

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
village landscape

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Village landscape with peasant family

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Village landscape with peasant family

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Village landscape with church in foreground

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Three farmers

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Three farmers and the sketch of a hat

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Three citizens

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Rocky landscape with castle and riders

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Rocky River Landscape

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Rocky area

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Rocky area with castle and river valley

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Rocky Landscape with Castle

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Rocky landscape with narrow path

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Figure study

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Figure studies , left: cripple , right: Soldier

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
River landscape with sailboat

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
river valley

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
River valley with mountain in background

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
mountain gorge

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
deer

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Deer studies

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Landscape with fortified city

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Landscape with mountain range

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Landscape with castle ruins and rock arch

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
landscape

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Landscape with river and mountains

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Landscape with river valley and mountains

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Landscape with St. Jerome

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Landscape with a monastery at the foot of a mountain

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Landscape with castle on rock

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Marine landscape

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Market woman

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
horse study

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Riders and two horses

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Ripa Grande , Rome

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Back view of a citizen

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Back view of a citizen

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Back figure of a peasant woman with basket

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Background figure with big hat

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Ruins and chapel on rocks

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Sleeping Bauer , sitting

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Seated Peasant Woman

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Sitting Bauer, a basket holding

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Seated farmer and farmer's wife standing with basket

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
sitting citizen

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Sitting citizens and cripple

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Sitting and standing farmer

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Sunrise in the valley

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Studies of three farmers

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
study sheet

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Study sheet , The Shepherd

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
study sheet

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
study sheet

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Stormy Sea
Towers and gates of Amsterdam
Towers and gates of Amsterdam
Towers and gates of Amsterdam
crippled beggar

crippled beggar
Drawing for " the Four Seasons " : Spring
Drawing for " the Four Seasons " : Summer
Drawing for " Last successes " : The Last Judgement
Drawing for " Last successes " : avarice ( Avaritia )
Drawing for " Last successes " : Pride ( Superbia )
Drawing for " Last successes " : Envy ( Invidia )
Drawing for " Last successes " : inertia ( Desidia , acedia )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Drawing for " Last successes " : unchastity ( Luxuria )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Drawing for " Last successes " : intemperance ( Gula )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Drawing for " Last successes " : Anger ( Ira )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Drawing on "virtue Series " : Christ in Limbo

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Drawing on "virtue Series " : Justice ( Justitia )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Drawing on "virtue Series " : Faith (Fides )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Drawing on "virtue Series " : Hope ( Spes )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Drawing on "virtue Series " : Wisdom ( Prudence )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Drawing on "virtue Series " : love (Caritas )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Drawing on "virtue Series " : Temperance ( Temperance )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Drawing on "virtue Series " : starch ( Fortitude )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Audience

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Two farmers

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Two farmers , profile and back figure

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Two citizens , back figures

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Two citizens , back figures

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Two wood chipper , back figures

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Two men in festive dress

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Two market women

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Two market women

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Two rabbis

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Two Seated Old

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Two sitting female farmers , back view

Illustrations

Pieter Bruegel the Eder

The Feast of Fools

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Parable of the Good Shepherd

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The parable of the virgins

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The senior officers of Ronse

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Alchemist

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The donkey in the school

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The case of the magician

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The trader and the monkeys

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The battle of the piggy banks with the money doses

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Triumph of Time

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The drunkard in the pigsty

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Resurrection

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The fortress on a rock

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Fat Kitchen

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The patience

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Witch of Malleghem

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The hunt for the wild hare

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The fair at St. Georges

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The fair of Hoboken

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The lean cuisine

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Four Seasons , Spring

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Four Seasons , Summer

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Elck (Everyone) and Nemo (No one )

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "little landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " vices "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " vices "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " vices "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " vices "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " vices "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " vices "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " vices "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " vices "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " marine ships "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " marine ships "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " marine ships "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " marine ships "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " marine ships "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " marine ships "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " marine ships "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " marine ships "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " marine ships "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the " marine ships "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "pilgrimage of epileptics "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "pilgrimage of epileptics "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "pilgrimage of epileptics "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "virtues"

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "virtues"

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "virtues"

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "virtues"

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "virtues"

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "virtues"

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "virtues"

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "virtues"

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve Proverbs "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve Proverbs "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve Proverbs "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve Proverbs "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve Proverbs "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve Proverbs "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve Proverbs "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve Proverbs "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve Proverbs "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve Proverbs "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve Proverbs "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve Proverbs "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve large landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve large landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve large landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve large landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve large landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve large landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve large landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve large landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve large landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve large landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Series of the "Twelve large landscapes "

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Large alpine landscape

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Big fish eat the little ones

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
St. James the Elder . and Hermogenes

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Hill above a river

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Jesus and the adulteress

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
On the road to Emmaus

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Carnival scene , two fools

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Carnival scene

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Landscape with Psyche and Mercury

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Death of the Virgin

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Marine vessels , sailing ship

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Cockaigne

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Ice Skating at St. George before the gates of Antwerp

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
Battle

Pieter Bruegel the Eder
The Temptation of St. Anthony

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Pieter Bruegel The Elder - The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Tower of Babel

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel) the Elder (Dutch: [ˈpitər ˈbrøːɣəl]; c. 1525 – 9 September 1569) was a Netherlandish Renaissance painter and printmaker from Brabant, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so called genre painting). He is sometimes referred to as the "Peasant Bruegel". From 1559, he dropped the 'h' from his name and signed his paintings as Bruegel.
Life

Two early sources for Bruegel's biography are Lodovico Guicciardini's account of the Low Countries and Karel van Mander's 1604 Schilder-boeck.[1] Guicciardini recorded that Bruegel was born in Breda, but van Mander specified Bruegel was born in a "village near Breda", i.e. the (now Dutch) town of Breugel. From the fact that Bruegel entered the Antwerp painters' guild in 1551, it is inferred that he was born between 1525 and 1530. His master, according to van Mander, was the Antwerp painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst, whose daughter Maria (called 'Mayken') Bruegel married in 1563. So he was between 1545-1550 a pupil of Pieter Coecke. Pieter Coecke died on 6 December 1550. In 1551 Bruegel became a free master in the Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp. In 1552 Bruegel was assigned to paint the rear of two wings of a triptych in Mechelen; the middle panel was painted by Pieter Balten. Bruegel got this work probably via the connections of Mayken Verhulst, the widow of Pieter Coecke. Mayken's father and eight siblings were all artists or married an artist and lived in Mechelen . Between 1552 and 1553 Bruegel traveled to Italy, probably by way of France. He visited Rome, where he met the miniaturist Giulio Clovio, whose will of 1578 lists three paintings by Bruegel. These works, apparently landscapes, have not survived. About 1555 Bruegel returned to Antwerp by way of the Alps, which resulted in a number of exquisite drawings of mountain landscapes. These sketches, which form the basis for many of his later paintings, are not records of actual places but "composites" made in order to investigate the organic life of forms in nature.[2]

He received the nickname "Peasant Bruegel" or "Bruegel the Peasant" for his practice of dressing up like a peasant in order to socialize at weddings and other celebrations, thereby gaining inspiration and authentic details for his genre paintings. He died in Brussels on 9 September 1569 and was buried in the Kapellekerk.
Historical background

Bruegel was born at a time of extensive change in Western Europe. Humanist ideals from the previous century influenced artists and scholars in Europe. Italy was at the end of their High Renaissance of arts and culture, when artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci painted their masterpieces. In 1517, about eight years before Bruegel's birth, Martin Luther created his Ninety-Five Theses and began the Protestant Reformation in neighboring Germany. Reformation was accompanied by iconoclasm, and widespread destruction of art, including in Low Countries. In response the Catholic Church which viewed Protestantism and its iconoclasm as a threat to the church, at the Council of Trent, which concluded in 1563, determined that religious art should be more focused on religious subject-matter, and less on material things and decorative qualities.

At this time, the Low Countries was divided into Seventeen Provinces, some of which wanted separation from the Habsburg rule based in Spain. The Reformation meanwhile produced a number of Protestant denominations, which gained followers in the Seventeen Provinces, influenced by the newly Lutheran German states to the east and the newly Anglican England to the west. The Habsburg monarchs of Spain attempted a policy of strict religious uniformity for the Catholic Church within their domains, and enforced it with the Inquisition. Increasing religious antagonisms and riots, political manoeuvrings, and executions, eventually resulted in the outbreak of Eighty Years' War.

This was the atmosphere in which Bruegel reached the height of his career as a painter. Two years before Bruegel's death, the Eighty Years' War began between the United Provinces and Spain. Although Bruegel did not live to see it, seven provinces became independent and formed The Dutch Republic, while the other ten remained under Habsburg control at the end of the war.[3]
Subjects
The Seven Deadly Sins or the Seven Vices - Anger, 1558

Pieter Bruegel specialized in genre paintings populated by peasants, often with a landscape element, but he also painted religious works. Making the life and manners of peasants the main focus of a work was rare in painting in Bruegel's time, and he was a pioneer of the genre painting. His earthy, unsentimental but vivid depiction of the rituals of village life—including agriculture, hunts, meals, festivals, dances, and games—are unique windows on a vanished folk culture, though still characteristically of Belgian life and culture today, and a prime source of iconographic evidence about both physical and social aspects of 16th century life. For example, his famous painting Flemish Proverbs, originally The Blue Cloak illustrates dozens of then-contemporary aphorisms, many of which still are in use in current Flemish, French, English and Dutch, and Children's Games shows the variety of amusements enjoyed by young people. His winter landscapes of 1565 (e.g. The Hunters in the Snow) are taken as corroborative evidence of the severity of winters during the Little Ice Age.

Using abundant spirit and comic power, he created some of the very early images of acute social protest in art history. Examples include paintings such as The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (a satire of the conflicts of the Protestant Reformation) and engravings like The Ass in the School and Strongboxes Battling Piggybanks.[4] On his deathbed, he reportedly ordered his wife to burn the most subversive of his drawings to protect his family from political persecution resulting from conflicts between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformation.
The sins and virtues

During the late 1550s in Antwerp, Bruegel designed engravings for the leading publisher of the city, Hieronymus Cock, at the House of the Four Winds. He achieved the greatest success with a series of allegories: The Seven Deadly Sins and The Virtues. It is easy to see his compatriot Hieronymus Bosch's influence in these engravings: the sinners are grotesque and unidentifiable while the allegories of virtue often wear odd headgear.[5]
Peasants
The Peasant Wedding, 1566–69, oil on panel

By 1558, Bruegel began painting more than drawing or carving. He primarily painted religious scenes in a Belgian setting, such as in his paintings, Conversion of Paul and The Sermon of St. John the Baptist. In the 1560s, Bruegel began painting the ordinary life of peasants. Often Bruegel painted a community event, as in The Peasant Wedding and The Fight Between Carnival and Lent. In paintings like The Peasant Wedding, Bruegel painted individual, identifiable people while the people in The Fight Between Carnival and Lent are unidentifiable, muffin-faced allegories of greed or gluttony.
The Blind Leading the Blind, 1568

Although Bruegel often painted scenes of carousing and community gatherings, he often accurately depicted cripples or people with disabilities. Perhaps one of Bruegel’s most famous paintings was The Blind Leading the Blind. Not only was Bruegel's subject matter unusual, but it also depicted a quote from the Bible: "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch" (Matthew 15:14). Using the Bible to interpret this painting, the six blind men are symbols of the blindness of mankind in pursuing earthly goals instead of focusing on Christ's teachings.
Netherlandish Proverbs, 1559, oil on oak wood

Even if Bruegel's subject matter was unconventional, the religious ideals and proverbs driving his paintings were typical of the Northern Renaissance. The Flemish environment provided a large artistic audience for proverb-filled paintings because proverbs were well known and recognizable as well as entertaining. One of Bruegel's most famous paintings remains his Netherlandish Proverbs, painted in 1559. The majority of Bruegel's paintings have many different actions occurring at once, but this painting, with over 110 proverbs, must have been one of his most symbolically laden paintings.[6]
Months of the year
The Hunters in the Snow, 1565, oil on wood

Paintings of proverbs were not Bruegel's only subjects. In 1565, a wealthy patron in Antwerp, Niclaes Jonghelinck, commissioned him to paint a series of paintings of each month of the year. There has been disagreement among art historians as to whether the series originally included six or twelve works.[7] Today, only five of these paintings survive and some of the months are paired to form a general season. Traditional Flemish books of hours (e.g., the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry;[8] 1416) had calendar pages that included depictions of what the social life, the weather, and the landscape supposedly would have looked like for that month.

Bruegel's paintings were on a larger scale than a typical calendar page painting, each one approximately three feet by five feet. For Bruegel, this was a large commission (the size of a commission was based on how large the painting was) and an important one. In 1565, the Calvinist riots began and it was only two years before the Eighty Years' War broke out. Bruegel may have felt safer with a secular commission so as to not offend Calvinist or Catholic.[9] Some of the most famous paintings from this series included The Hunters in the Snow (December–January) and The Harvesters (August).
Family

Pieter the Elder had two sons: Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder (both changed their name to Brueghel). Their grandmother, Mayken Verhulst, trained the sons because "the Elder" died when both were very small children. The older brother, Pieter Brueghel, was not the better painter of the two; he copied his father's style but without any degree of great talent. Jan was more successful; he turned to the Baroque style and even collaborated with Peter Paul Rubens on the Allegory of Sight.[10]

Other members of the family include Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Mayken Verhulst (father-in-law and mother-in-law to Pieter Bruegel the Elder), Jan van Kessel the Elder (grandson of Jan Bruegel the Elder) and Jan van Kessel the Younger. Through David Teniers, the family is also related to the whole Teniers family of painters and the Quellinus family of painters and sculptors, since Jan-Erasmus Quellinus married Cornelia, daughter of David Teniers the Younger.

Brueghel family tree
Work referenced in others' work
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c. 1558, oil on canvas mounted on wood

His painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is the subject of the 1938 poem "Musée des Beaux Arts" by W. H. Auden:

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.[11]

It also was the subject of a 1960 poem by William Carlos Williams and was referenced in Nicolas Roeg's 1976 science fiction film The Man Who Fell to Earth.
Two Monkeys, 1562, oil on panel

Bruegel's painting Two Monkeys was the subject of Wisława Szymborska 1957 poem, "Brueghel's Two Monkeys".[12]

Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky referenced Bruegel's paintings in his films several times, notably Solaris (1972) and The Mirror (1975).

Director Lars von Trier also uses Bruegel's paintings in his film Melancholia (2011). This was used as a reference to Tarkovsky's Solaris, a movie with related themes.

His 1564 painting The Procession to Calvary inspired the 2011 Polish-Swedish film co-production The Mill and the Cross, in which Bruegel is played by Rutger Hauer.

Bruegel's paintings in the Kunsthistorisches Museum are shown in the 2012 film, Museum Hours, where his work is discussed at length by a guide.

It is believed that his painting The Hunters in the Snow influenced the classic short story with the same title written by Tobias Wolff and featured in In the Garden of the North American Martyrs.

Seamus Heaney referenced Breughel in his poem "The Seed Cutters".[13]

David Jones references the painting The Blind Leading the Blind in his World War One prose-poem In Parenthesis: 'the stumbling dark of the blind, that Breughel knew about - ditch circumscribed'.

Michael Frayn, in his novel Headlong, invents a lost panel from the 1565 Months series, which triggers a mad conflict between an art (and money) lover and the boor who possesses it. Much thought is spent on Bruegel's secret motives for painting it.

In his book American Barricade, Danniel Schoonebeek references several Brueghel paintings in his poem "Poem for a Seven-Hour Flight," notably in the lines: "I am the hounds in Brueghel / do you know the hounds // here is the single fox I have killed will you wear it around your shoulders are you ashamed."
Works

There are about 45 authenticated surviving paintings, one third of which are in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. A number of others are known to have been lost. There are a large number of drawings. Brueghel only etched one plate himself, The Rabbit Hunt, but designed many engravings and etchings, mostly for the Cock publishing house.

Children's Games (1560), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

A detail of Children's Games (1560)

The Triumph of Death (c. 1562), Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Fall of the Rebel Angels, (1562), Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

The Tower of Babel (1563), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, oil on board

The Procession to Calvary, 1564, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap (1565), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The Hay Harvest (1565), National Museum (Prague), Lobkowicz family collection in Lobkowicz Palace in Prague Castle [14]

The Harvesters (1565), oil on panel, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Wedding Dance (c.1566), oil on oak panel, The Detroit Institute of Arts

The Census at Bethlehem (1566), oil on wood panel, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

Massacre of the Innocents, (c. 1565-1567), Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu

The Land of Cockaigne (1567), Alte Pinakothek, an illustration of the medieval mythical land of plenty called Cockaigne

The Peasant and the Nest Robber (1568), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The Peasant Dance (1568), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, oil on oak panel

The Beggars (The Cripples) (1568), Louvre, Paris, oil on panel

Selected works
See also: List of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

There are about 45 authenticated surviving paintings, one third of which are in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. A number of others are known to have been lost. There are a large number of drawings. Bruegel only etched one plate himself, The Rabbit Hunt, but designed many engravings and etchings, mostly for the Hieronymus Cock publishing house.

Twelve Proverbs, 1558, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp
Naval Battle in the Gulf of Naples, 1560, Galleria Doria-Pamphilj, Rome
The Fall of the Rebel Angels 1562, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
The "Little" Tower of Babel, c. 1563, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
The Procession to Calvary, 1564, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The Adoration of the Kings, 1564, The National Gallery, London
Massacre of the Innocents, c. 1567, versions at Royal Collection, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, at Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu,[15] and at Upton House, Banbury
Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap, 1565, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, inv. 8724
Landscape with Christ and the Apostles at the Sea of Tiberias, 1553, probably with Maarten de Vos, private collection
Ass at School, 1556, drawing, Print room, Berlin State Museums
Parable of the Sower, 1557, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c.1554–55, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels – Note: Now seen as a copy of a lost authentic Bruegel painting[16]
The Blue Cloak (or Flemish Proverbs), 1559, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
The Fight Between Carnival and Lent, 1559, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Portrait of an Old Woman, 1560, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
Children's Games, 1560, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Temperance, 1560
The Suicide of Saul (Battle Against The Philistines on the Gilboa), 1562, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Two Small Monkeys, 1562, Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
The Triumph of Death, c. 1562, Museo del Prado, Madrid
Dulle Griet (Mad Meg), c. 1562, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp
The Tower of Babel, 1563, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Flight To Egypt, 1563, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London
The Death of the Virgin, 1564, (grisaille), Upton House, Banbury
The Months, a cycle of probably six paintings of the months or seasons, of which five remain:
The Hunters in the Snow (Dec.–Jan.), 1565, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The Gloomy Day (Feb.–Mar.), 1565, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The Hay Harvest (June–July), 1565, Lobkowicz Palace at the Prague Castle Complex, Czech Republic
The Harvesters (Aug.-Sept.), 1565, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Return of the Herd (Oct.–Nov.), 1565, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (1565), Courtauld Institute of Art, London
The Calumny of Apelles, 1565, drawing, British Museum, London
The Painter and the Connoisseur, drawing, c. 1565, Albertina, Vienna
Preaching of John the Baptist, 1566, Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest)
The Census at Bethlehem, 1566, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
The Wedding Dance, c. 1566, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Conversion of Paul, 1567, Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna
The Land of Cockaigne, 1567, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
The Adoration of the Magi in the Snow, 1567, Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur
The Magpie on the Gallows, 1568, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt
The Misanthrope, 1568, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples
The Blind Leading the Blind, 1568, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples
The Peasant Wedding, 1568, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The Peasant Dance, 1568, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The Beggars (The Cripples), 1568, Louvre, Paris
The Peasant and the Nest Robber, 1568, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The Three Soldiers, 1568, The Frick Collection, New York City
The Storm at Sea, an unfinished work, probably Bruegel's last painting.
The Wine of Saint Martin's Day, Museo del Prado, Madrid (discovered in 2010)

Prints

Large Fish Eat Small Fish, 1556, a print after a Bruegel design

References

van Mander's Bruegel biography in Dutch
http://www.pieter-bruegel-the-elder.org/biography.html
Foote, Timothy (1968). The World of Bruegel. Library of Congress: Time-Life Library of Art. pp. 18–27.
Mayor, A. Hyatt (1971). Prints & People: A Social History of Printed Pictures. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 426.
Foote, Timothy (1968). The World of Bruegel. Library of Congress: Time-Life Library.
Stokstad, Cothren, Marilyn, Michael (2010). Art History- Fourteenth to Seventeenth Century Art.
Gibson, Walter S. (1977) . Bruegel. The World of Art Library. Thames and Hudson pp 147-148.
Stokstad, Cothren, Marilyn, Michael (2010). Art History- Fourteenth to Seventeenth Century Art.
Foote, Timothy (1968). The World of Bruegel. Library of Congress: Time-Life Library.
"Pieter Bruegel, the Elder". World History in Context. Encyclopedia of World Biography.
Foote, Timothy (1986). The World of Bruegel. Time-Life Library. p. 149.
Szymborska, Wislawa (1995). View With a Grain of Sand. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 3.
Heaney, Seamus. Opened Ground: Poems 1966-1996. Faber & Faber. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-57126-279-3.
Lobkowicz Collections website
Masterpieces of the Brukenthal Collection

(Het journaal 1–11/11/09). "deredactie.be". Vrtnieuws.net. Archived from the original on 27 February 2009. Retrieved 12 November 2009.

External links

www.Pieter-Bruegel-The-Elder.org 99 works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Gallery of all paintings and drawings
Timken Museum of Art's "Parable of the Sower" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Creativity Brueghel laid the foundation of the Netherlands School
The political consciousness of Pieter Bruegel
"Bruegel". Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.
Orenstein, Nadine M., ed. (2001). Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 9780870999901.

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