Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a Netherlandish Renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes. He was nicknamed Peasant Bruegel to distinguish him from other members of the Bruegel dynasty. He was the greatest member of a large and important southern Netherlandish family of artists active for four generation in the 16th and 17th centuries.
While Karel van Mander, a Dutch biographer, claims that Netherlandish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder was born in a town of the same name near Breda, most recent authorities follow the Italian writer Guicciardini in designating Breda itself as the birthplace of Pieter. It is inferred that Pieter was born between 1525 and 1530 on the basis of the fact that Pieter entered the guild of Antwerp painters in 1551.
By way of the Alps, Pieter Bruegel the Elder returned to Antwerp around 1555. This return resulted to a number of exquisite drawings of mountain landscapes. Forming the basis for many of his later paintings, these sketches were not records of actual places but composites made for the investigation of the organic life in forms of nature.
There is evidence to suggest that Pieter Bruegel the Elder was attempting to substitute a new and moral eschatology for the traditional view of the Christian cosmos of Bosch in his series of engravings, Seven Deadly Sins. This was despite of efforts to dismiss the engravings as fascinating drolleries.
Forming the body of the early encyclopedic works of Pieter Bruegel the Elder were the 1559 painting of the Netherlandish Proverbs and the 1560 highly involved artwork of Children's Games. They have been considered as allegories of a foolish and sinful world, despite their superficial gaiety.
The Dulle Griet of 1562 was still related to the style of Hieronymus Bosch. However it was unlike the works of Hieronymus in the sense that it was not intended as a moral sermon against the depravity of the world but rather as a recognition of evil in it. This capacity to see evil as inseparable from the human condition was carried over into the Triumph of Death, another Pieter Bruegel painting of the same year.
While Karel van Mander, a Dutch biographer, claims that Netherlandish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder was born in a town of the same name near Breda, most recent authorities follow the Italian writer Guicciardini in designating Breda itself as the birthplace of Pieter. It is inferred that Pieter was born between 1525 and 1530 on the basis of the fact that Pieter entered the guild of Antwerp painters in 1551.
By way of the Alps, Pieter Bruegel the Elder returned to Antwerp around 1555. This return resulted to a number of exquisite drawings of mountain landscapes. Forming the basis for many of his later paintings, these sketches were not records of actual places but composites made for the investigation of the organic life in forms of nature.
There is evidence to suggest that Pieter Bruegel the Elder was attempting to substitute a new and moral eschatology for the traditional view of the Christian cosmos of Bosch in his series of engravings, Seven Deadly Sins. This was despite of efforts to dismiss the engravings as fascinating drolleries.
Forming the body of the early encyclopedic works of Pieter Bruegel the Elder were the 1559 painting of the Netherlandish Proverbs and the 1560 highly involved artwork of Children's Games. They have been considered as allegories of a foolish and sinful world, despite their superficial gaiety.
The Dulle Griet of 1562 was still related to the style of Hieronymus Bosch. However it was unlike the works of Hieronymus in the sense that it was not intended as a moral sermon against the depravity of the world but rather as a recognition of evil in it. This capacity to see evil as inseparable from the human condition was carried over into the Triumph of Death, another Pieter Bruegel painting of the same year.
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