Bruegel's work poses the answer to the question as to what kind of subjects and material artists could engage with, when religious subjects were no longer the central focus of painting. Bruegel’s solution to this dilemma was to engage with scenes depicting agricultural workers and their lives. Bruegel was working to commission, and some of his patrons wanted the common tropes of key biblical stories. These stories were adapted and placed in the land and language of Northern Europe - children running around, games played at that time so the painting becomes a snapshot of rural peasant life as well as an illustration of an important biblical theme.
The fact that many of these compositions were employed to deliver serious narratives, taken from the Bible and Classical mythology, supported Bruegel’s position, that peasants were entirely suitable subjects for depiction in serious art work.
His place in the Story Teller’s collective was secured by the production of his work, ‘Landscape with the Fall of Icarus’ (1558).
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1558)
These were paintings that depicted scenes and stories from daily life. Just as Shakespeare employed rustic figures as clowns through which the failings of human nature could be depicted, Brueghel as a story-teller focuses upon the lives of the working poor, because amongst these people human nature was stripped of the veneer of sophistication, artifice and manners, and the human nature, in all its nuanced range of behaviours, could be more vividly depicted. The peasants who dance, feast and make-merry in these pictures turn their backs on traditional symbols of religious life, in the example (above), a flag indicating that this is a Saint’s day. An element of moral instruction is evidenced in depictions of vices like gluttony, lust and vanity.
Little is known about Bruegel’s upbringing, but it has assumed that his emphasis upon portraying the lives of the working poor indicates that he came from a peasant background. Others have argued that Bruegel came from a more cultivated background, due to the rich literary traditions embedded within his work.
Bruegel’s success can be laid in part to the unique geographical position of his home country, the Netherlands, during the Reformation. Gombrich (1996) p.286, states that ‘this was the only Protestant country in Europe where art survived the crisis of the Reformation. There, where painting had flourished for so long artists found a way out of their predicament: instead of concentrating on portrait painting alone they specialized in all those types of subject-matter to which the Protestant Church could raise no objections.’
The Peasants’ Dance, 1569
These were paintings that depicted scenes and stories from daily life. Just as Shakespeare employed rustic figures as clowns through which the failings of human nature could be depicted, Brueghel as a story-teller focuses upon the lives of the working poor, because amongst these people human nature was stripped of the veneer of sophistication, artifice and manners, and the human nature, in all its nuanced range of behaviours, could be more vividly depicted. The peasants who dance, feast and make-merry in these pictures turn their backs on traditional symbols of religious life, in the example (above), a flag indicating that this is a Saint’s day. An element of moral instruction is evidenced in depictions of vices like gluttony, lust and vanity.
Little is known about Bruegel’s upbringing, but it has assumed that his emphasis upon portraying the lives of the working poor indicates that he came from a peasant background. Others have argued that Bruegel came from a more cultivated background, due to the rich literary traditions embedded within his work.
Bruegel’s success can be laid in part to the unique geographical position of his home country, the Netherlands, during the Reformation. Gombrich (1996) p.286, states that ‘this was the only Protestant country in Europe where art survived the crisis of the Reformation. There, where painting had flourished for so long artists found a way out of their predicament: instead of concentrating on portrait painting alone they specialized in all those types of subject-matter to which the Protestant Church could raise no objections.’
The Triumph of Death 1562
Thus Bruegel’s the Triumph of Death (1562) could be justified as providing an incentive to those tempted to stray from the Church’s teachings.
Other major works delivered important Biblical stories and themes; for example, The Massacre of the Innocents, (1565-7) and The Census at Bethlehem 1566, which establish Bruegel’s pre-eminent position as an interpreter of Christian theology, through the medium of narrative painting.
The Massacre of the Innocents, (1565-7)
The Census at Bethlehem 1566
Through his vast output of narrative-rich genre, classical and religious work, Bruegel confirmed his position as the founder-member of the Story-Tellers Collective.