Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel) the Elder (Dutch: [ˈpitər ˈbrøːɣəɫ]; Breda, c. 1525-1530 - Brussels, September 9, 1569) was the most important artist of Flemish and Brabantine Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker from the Brabant region, known for his portrayals of landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genre painting); he was also the first pioneer who chose to make both modes the focus in his prominent paintings.
He was initially a formative influence of the so-called "Golden Age" of Dutch painting, later turning to paintings in general, often with innovative subject choices. He emerged in one of the first generations of artists to grow up when religious portraiture had ceased to be a recurring subject in painting.
Bruegel did not paint portraits either, even though they represented a pillar of Dutch art at the time. After training and numerous trips to Italy, the painter returned in 1555 to settle in Antwerp, where he worked mainly as a prolific draughtsman of engravings for daily publications.
It was only towards the end of the decade that the artist began to make painting his main activity; all his famous works come from the following period of just over a decade, which preceded his premature death at the peak of his abilities, around the age of 44.
In addition to looking forward, his work reinvigorates medieval themes, such as the portrayal of everyday life by the grotesque style amid illuminated manuscripts, and the seasonal scenes of agricultural work, always set in landscape contexts and placed on a much larger scale than medieval works, all by means of costly oil painting. He does the same with the fantastic and anarchic world developed in Renaissance engravings and book illustrations.
He is sometimes referred to as "Peasant Bruegel," to distinguish him from the many later painters in his family, including his son Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564-1638), or allegedly because he was in the habit of dressing as a peasant, a way of blending in with the rest of the population at weddings and other celebrations, in order to draw inspiration for his works.
From 1559, he dropped the 'h' from his name and began signing his paintings as Bruegel; his relatives continued to use "Brueghel" or "Breughel," unlike his children.
Pieter Bruegel's Life
He was admitted as a master to St. Luke's guild at the age of 26, in 1551, and as an apprentice to Coecke Van Aelst, an Antwerp artist, sculptor, architect and craftsman of tapestries and stained glass. It was at this time that Bruegel traveled to Italy, where he produced a series of paintings, most of which depicted landscapes. His first signed and dated work was produced in Rome in 1553.
In 1553, he settled in Antwerp and ten years later moved to Brussels permanently. He married Mayken in 1563, daughter of Van Aelst, his master.
Very little is known about Bruegel's personality, other than a few words by Carel van Mander: "He was a quiet, wise and discreet man. But when he was in company, he was entertaining and liked to scare people and his apprentices with ghost stories and other diabolical antics." He is also known as Brugel, The Peasant,
He traveled around Italy to learn the Renaissance way of painting, staying, as an intern, a season in the studio of a Sicilian teacher.
He was a painter of crowds and popular scenes, with a vitality such that it overflows from the painting. Besides his predilection for landscapes, he painted pictures that highlighted the absurd in vulgarity, exposing human weaknesses and follies, which brought him much fame.
The most obvious influence on his art is Hieronymus Bosch, particularly in his early studies of demonic images, such as Triumph of Death and Dulle Griet ("The Mad Woman"). It was in nature, however, that he found his greatest inspiration, being identified as a master of landscapes.
He is often credited as being the first Western painter to paint landscapes as a central element rather than as a historical backdrop to a painting.
He portrayed the life and customs of the peasants, their land, a vivid depiction of village rituals, life, including farming, hunting, meals, feasts, dances and games. His winter landscapes of 1565 (e.g. Hunters in the Snow) are taken as corroborative evidence of the severity of winters during the Little Ice Age.
Using abundant satire and force, he created some of the first images of social protest in art history. Examples include paintings such as The Struggle between Carnival and Lent (a satire of the conflicts of the Protestant Reformation).