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Pieter Bruegel the Elder was one of the most significant artists in the Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting. Bruegel had grown up in a time when he was the first generation of artists for whom religious painting was not the natural subject material of painting. This made Bruegel’s work very interesting. Unlike other Netherlandish artists, Bruegel also painted no portraits. Besides paintings, Bruegel also made prints, especially after he had settled in Antwerp.
Bruegel's paintings continue to inspire many artists though, including many contemporary filmmakers, like Andrei Tarkovsky and Lars Von Trier, both referencing his paintings in their movies.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder and His Family Life
Very little is known about Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s early life, his background remains a mystery. In fact, his birth date is unknown and can only be estimated by the time he joined the Antwerp Painters’ Guild in 1551, placing his age then at around 25.
From 1555 to 1563 Bruegel lived in Antwerp, which was then the publishing capital of northern Europe. He worked making prints for Hieronymus Cock, though Bruegel did not work the prints himself. In 1563, he married Pieter Coecke van Aelst's daughter Mayken Coecke. He had two sons, Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder.
Both were rather young when their father died but their grandmother trained them. Pieter the Younger copied his father’s style and compositions with great success, while Jan the Elder’s art was an important marker in the transition into Baroque art in Flemish Baroque art. He often collaborated with other leading artists, one of whom was Peter Paul Rubens.
Breaking Down Bruegel’s Paintings – Religious References and Landscapes
Though Bruegel the Elder also painted some religious works, the majority of his pieces are genre paintings featuring landscapes and the subject of peasants. His focus on peasants actually leads many to believe that Bruegel himself had a peasant upbringing but there is no proof of this.
His paintings are usually top-down or situated from the angle of someone high up looking downwards. It would show peasants going through daily life, just different chores and tasks that they are undertaking. Hunts, meals, festivals, Bruegel covers every aspect of peasant life in his paintings. Netherlandish Proverbs or Children’s Games are perfect examples of such paintings.
Compositionally, in most Bruegel artworks, the subjects are all spread evenly, looking a lot like Bruegel’s predecessor in style, Hieronymus Bosch’s work. At the time, paintings that focused on peasant life like this were uncommon, and Bruegel the Elder was one of the very few to focus on it. His paintings give insight into the life of peasants at the time. The Hunters in the Snow shows the severity of winters then, while The Peasant Wedding shows us a community event.
Bruegel’s religious paintings are quite commendable as well. In The Blind Leading the Blind, which is a painting about the quote from the Bible: "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch" (Matthew 15:14). Each person in the image has a different affliction of the eye; corneal leukoma, atrophy of globe, and removed eyes. Bruegel has painted an accurate representation of disabled people and also made an allegorical painting about blindly not following Christ and focusing on earthly goals instead. Another one of his paintings, The Tower of Babel, accurately shows the process of building a tower.
Bruegel’s style of landscape paintings is one known as world landscape, coming from the German word Weltlandschaft. It means a type of landscape painting with an almost sort of aerial view where the figures are dwarfed in comparison to their massive natural surroundings. Bruegel painted mountains, water, lowlands, and buildings in his work.
Printworks of Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Bruegel was initially known through his prints, as it’s believed that the vast majority of them survived, not to mention the sheer quantity of the work. On Brugel’s return to Antwerp from Italy he worked for Hieronymus Cock, making prints. Most of Bruegel’s prints come from this period, in fact. They are mostly engravings, etchings, or a combination of these techniques. There was only one completed woodblock that was made, The Dirty Wife. This was being completed by the specialist woodcarver by the technique of carving by destroying the original drawing, but it appears they’ve only cut one corner of the block before stopping work.
One project of Bruegel’s that was met with great success was a work concerning allegories, many of the subjects look close to Hieronymus Bosch's creatures or mannerisms. The Seven Deadly Sins and The Virtues are the pieces in question, and the grotesque sinners alongside the strangely adorned virtues still stand out to us today.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a master of his craft. His art and compositions still echo within modern art today, reflected by people who see Bruegel’s genius for what it is. His paintings pop up in surprising places and we are always happy to see them, a reminder of time past.
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