Art in Detail: BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder (Featured Paintings)

2. Art in Detail
BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder
(Featured Paintings)

4. Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525–1569) was a Netherlandish Renaissance painter.
His artworks have inspired many, including the renowned painter Peter Rubens,
as well as many Flemish painters in the following 17th century.

5. The Fall of the Rebel Angels
... creatures repulsive, but also curious and fantastic imaginable:
mussel shells grafted onto a gigantic shrimp,
a human head with butterfly wings attached to a shapeless,
bloated body, a puffy gnome carrying a sundial and with a plumed helmet on his head,
viscous fish with arms, lizard scales, crustacean paws…
Angels combat them, led by St Michael....

6. BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder
The Fall of the Rebel Angels
1562
Oil on oak, 117 x 162 cm
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

10. The Triumph of Death
... the skeletons of death mowing down the living with scythes, en masse or individually:
resistance is useless.
Trees and grass are withered;
the fires of Hell blaze behind the hills,
and the Christian promise of resurrection and redemption is absent.

11. BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder
The Triumph of Death
c. 1562
Oil on panel, 117 x 162 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

14. The Tower of Babel
The parallel of Rome and Babylon ...
Roman Colosseum: Rome, the Eternal City intended by the Caesars to last for ever,
a symbol of decay, ruin and the vanity.
Biblical Tower of Babel: an architectural masterpiece,
a symbol of the unification of mankind and their commitment to the Church;
... a Church facing a schism between the Catholicism (Rome) and the Lutheran-Protestant religion (Netherlands).

15. BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder
The Tower of Babel
1563
Oil on oak panel, 114 x 155 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

18. The Suicide of Saul
Saul took a sword and fell on it ... (1 Samuel 31:1-5)
People like King Saul and his squire, who have both thrown themselves upon their swords,
appear small and insignificant against the broad expanse of nature ...

19. BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder
The Suicide of Saul
1562
Oil on panel, 34 x 55 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienn

21. The Census at Bethlehem
Joseph and Mary have come to Bethlehem to register themselves on the census ordered by Emperor Augustus.
A biblical story as a contemporary event ...
a Flemish village in winter at sundown,
a group of people at a building on the left,
a sign bearing the Habsburg double-headed eagle,
Joseph and the pregnant Virgin Mary on a donkey are making their way to the same building
criticism of the severity of the Spanish administration in the southern Netherlands
or general criticism of bureaucratic methods

22. BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder
The Census at Bethlehem
1566
Oil on oak, 116 x 164 cm
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

24. Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
Wearing wings held together with wax, Icarus approached too close to the sun; the wax melted,
and Icarus fell into the sea ...
Bruegel through the farmer, the shepherd and the angler, he is promulgating Stoic ideas:
one should not rebel against the laws of the cosmos,
but should be content to fulfil one's tasks in the appointed place.

25. BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
c. 1555
Oil on canvas, mounted on wood, 73,5 x 112
cm
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

26. ICARUS ...
Stupid Sun Chariot.
Why couldn't Apollo have just flown a little higher or something?

27. Art in Detail: BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder, Featured
Paintings
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ICARUS, Current city Elysium, the Underworld ...
I really miss the sun. It's just so... wow... you know? Just wow.