Home > Pieter Brueghel the Elder
Pieter Brueghel the Elder or Bruegel (c. 1525 - 1569) was a Flemish painter known for his landscapes and peasant scenes. There are records that he was born in Broghel near Breda, but it is unsure whether the Dutch town of Breda or the Belgian town of Bree, called Breda in Latin, is meant. From 1559 he dropped the 'h' from his name and started signing his paintings as Bruegel.He was an apprentice of Pieter Coecke van Aelst , whose daughter Mayke he later married, and was in 1551 accepted as a master in the painters' guild of Antwerp. He travelled to Italy soon after, and then returned to Antwerp before settling in Brussels permanently 10 years later. He died there on 9 September, 1569.
He was the father of Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder who both became painters, but as they were still infants when their father died neither received any training directly from him.
Bruegel specialised in landscapes populated by peasantA peasant from 15th century French paisant from Latin pagus country district, is someone who lives in the country either working for others or, more specifically, owning or renting and working by his own labour a small plot of ground. Peasants depend econs, painted in a simpler style than the Italianate art that prevailed at the time. The most obvious influence on his art is the older Dutch master Hieronymus BoschHieronymus Bosch also Jeroen Bosch (c. 1450 August 1516) was a prolific Dutch painter of the 15th and 16th century. Many of his works depict sin and human moral failings; they contain complex, highly original, imaginative, and dense use of symbolic figure. He is nicknamed 'Peasant Brueghel' to distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynastyBrueghel or Bruegel was the name of several Flemish painters from the same family line: Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c. 1525- 1569) — The most famous member of the family and the only one to sign his paintings as 'Bruegel' with out the h. Pieter Brueghel th, but is also the one generally meant when the context does not make clear which "Brueghel" is being referred to.
He is often credited as being the first western painter to paint landscapes for their own sake, rather than as a backdrop to a religious alegory.
1 Works
- Large Fish Eat Small Fish 1556, Albertina, Vienna
- Ass at School 1556, Kupferstichkabinett Staatliche Museen, Berlin
- Landscape with the Fall of Icarus c.1558, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brussels
- Netherlandish Proverbs 1559, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Gemaldegalerie, Berlin
Bruegel's Netherlandish Proverbs 1559, with peasant scenes illustrating over 100 proverbA proverb (from the Latin proverbium is a pithy saying which had gained credence through widespread or frequent use. Most proverbs express some basic truth or practical precept. A proverb which describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a "maxs
- The Fight Between Carnival and Lent 1559, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
- Children's Games 1560, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
- Saul (Battle Against The Filistines On The Gilboa) 1562, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
- Two Small Monkeys 1562, Staaliche Museen, Gemaldegalerie, Berlin
- The Triumph of DeathThe Triumph of Death is an oil on panel, approximately 117 by 162 centimeters, painted c. 1562 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It currently hangs in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. The painting is a panoramic deathscape: armies of skeletons advance on the haple 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 Wien, Vienna
- Flight To Egypt 1563, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London
- The "Little" Tower of Babel c. 1563, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam
- The Procession to Calvary 1564, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
- The Adoration of the Kings 1564, The National Gallery, London
- The Months. A cycle of 6 or 12 paintings of the months or seasons from the Book of hours of which five remain:
- The Hunters in the Snow (Dec.-Jan.) 1565, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
- The Gloomy Day (Feb.-Ma.) 1565, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
- Hay-Harvest (June-July) 1565, National Museum, Prague
- The Harvesters (Aug.-Sept.) 1565, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- The Return of the Herd (Oct.-Nov.) 1565, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
- Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap 1565, Wiltshire, Wilton House
- The Calumny of Apelles 1565, British Museum, London
- Massacre of the Innocents c. 1565, Hampton Court, U.K./Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
- The Painter and the Connoisseur c. 1565, Albertina, Vienna
- Preaching Of John The Baptist 1566 , Beaux Arts Museum, Budapest
- Census at Bethlehem 1566, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brussels
- Conversion Of Paulus 1567, Kunsthistorishes Museum Wien, Vienna
- The Land of CockaignePieter Bruegel the Elder's The Land of Cockaigne painted in 1567. Oil on panel. Currently in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany. Cockaigne was a medieval fictional island, a mythical land of plenty, where all the harshness of medieval/Land Of Milk And Honey 1567, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
- The Blind Leading the Blind 1568, Museo Nazionale, Napoli
- The Peasant Wedding 1568, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
- The Peasant Dance 1568, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
- The Beggars 1568 , Louvre, Paris
- The Peasant and the Nest Robber 1568, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
- The Death of the Virgin
- The Fall of the Rebel Angels, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brussels
See also: Early Renaissance paintingJan van Eyck (1434). Early Renaissance painting bridges the period of European art history between the art of the Middle Ages and the art of the Renaissance. Two regions of Europe were particularly artistically active during this period: northern Europe (
