Pieter Brueghel the Elder or Balls (c.1525 – September 9, 1569) was a Flemish Renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (Genre Painting). He is nicknamed 'Peasant Brueghel' to distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynasty, but is also the one generally meant when the context does not make clear which "Brueghel" is being referred to. From 1559 he dropped the 'h' from his name and started signing his paintings as Bruegel.

Life

There are records that he was born in Breda, Netherlands but it is uncertain whether the Dutch town of Breda or the Belgian town of Bree, called Breda in Latin, is meant. He was an apprentice of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, whose daughter Mayke he later married. In 1551 he was accepted as a master in the painters' guild of Antwerp. He travelled to Italy soon after, and then returned to Antwerp before settling in Brussels permanently 10 years later. He died there on 9 September 1569.

He was the father of Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder. Both became painters, but as they were still infants when their father died neither received any training from him.

Style

We are not sure when Brueghel was born, but in his later years Brueghel painted in a simpler style than the Italianate art that prevailed in his time. The most obvious influence on his art is the older Dutch master Hieronymus Bosch, particularly in Brueghel's early "demonological" paintings such as The Triumph of Death and Dulle Griet (Mad Meg). It was in nature, however, that he found his greatest inspirations as he is identified as being a master of landscapes. It was in these landscapes that Brueghel created a story, with almost several scenes seemingly combined in one painting. Such works can be seen in "The Fall of the Rebel Angels" and the previously mentioned "The Triumph of Death".

Themes

Bruegel specialized in landscapes populated by peasants. He is often credited as being the first Western painter to paint landscapes for their own sake, rather than as a backdrop to a religious allegory.

Attention to the life and manners of peasants was rare in the arts in Breughel's time. His earthy, unsentimental but vivid depiction of the rituals of village life—including agriculture, hunts, meals, festivals, dances, and games—are unique windows on a vanished folk culture and a prime source of iconographic evidence about both physical and social aspects of 16th century life. For example, the painting Netherlandish Proverbs illustrates dozens of then-contemporary aphorisms, while Children's Games shows the variety of amusements enjoyed by young people. His winter landscapes of 1565 are taken as corroborative evidence of the severity of winters during the Little Ice Age.

Breughel created some of the early images of acute social protest in art history, in paintings like The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (a satire of the conflicts of the Reformation) and engravings like The Ass in the School and Strongboxes Battling Piggybanks. On his deathbed he reportedly ordered his wife to burn the most subversive of his drawings to protect his family from political persecution.