Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525—1569) was a Dutch Renaissance painter, among the first masters to paint mostly secular subjects.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder Summary
- Likely born in Breda, in the southern Netherlands, though little is known of his origins
- Conducted a daring voyage through Italy in his youth, but did not pay much attention to its art
- Among the first painters to also produce prints; indeed, it was his main source of income
- The painter who inaugurated the world landscape style
- His sons, styled ‘the Younger’ and ‘the Elder’, also became successful painters
- His great focus was genre paintings with peasants for subjects
Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Famous Paintings
- Netherlandish Proverbs (1559)
- The Beggars (1568)
- The Fight between Carnival and Lent (1559)
- Children’s Games (1560)
- Landscape with the Flight into Egypt (1563)
- The Tower of Babel (1563)
- The Hunters in the Snow (1565)
- Winter Landscape with (Skaters and) a Bird Trap (1565)
- Massacre of the Innocents (c. 1567)
- The Blind Leading the Blind (1568)
- The Peasant Wedding (c. 1569)