By Darren Hartley
Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a Netherlandish painter and engraving designer. His works provided a profound and elemental insight into man and his relationship to the world of nature. He lived at a time when northern art was strongly influenced by Italian mannerism.
According to Karl van Mander, a Dutch biographer, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, an Antwerp painter, served as the master to Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It was the daughter of Pieter Coecke that Pieter Bruegel later on married in 1563.
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.
Unlike Big Fish Eat Little Fish, a pen drawing by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1557 that carried the name of Hieronymus Bosch, the series Seven Deadly Sins, engraved in 1558, carried the own signature of Pieter. It was a sign of the increasing importance of Pieter during the time.
The 1959 Combat of Carnival and Lent, one of the earliest signed and dated painting of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the influence of Hieronymus Bosch was still strongly felt. Derivatives from the earlier Dutch master included the high-horizoned landscape, the decorative surface patterning and many of the iconographic details.
The two most phantasmagoric works of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the Dulle Griet and the Triumph of Death were related in conception to his encyclopaedic paintings. Both paintings were presumed to have been executed in 1562. The Tower of Babel of 1563 was the last of the great figurative anthologies by Pieter.
According to Karl van Mander, a Dutch biographer, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, an Antwerp painter, served as the master to Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It was the daughter of Pieter Coecke that Pieter Bruegel later on married in 1563.
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.
Unlike Big Fish Eat Little Fish, a pen drawing by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1557 that carried the name of Hieronymus Bosch, the series Seven Deadly Sins, engraved in 1558, carried the own signature of Pieter. It was a sign of the increasing importance of Pieter during the time.
The 1959 Combat of Carnival and Lent, one of the earliest signed and dated painting of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the influence of Hieronymus Bosch was still strongly felt. Derivatives from the earlier Dutch master included the high-horizoned landscape, the decorative surface patterning and many of the iconographic details.
The two most phantasmagoric works of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the Dulle Griet and the Triumph of Death were related in conception to his encyclopaedic paintings. Both paintings were presumed to have been executed in 1562. The Tower of Babel of 1563 was the last of the great figurative anthologies by Pieter.
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Want to find out more about engraving designer Pieter Bruegel the Elder, then visit Darren Hartley's site on how to choose the best Botticelli paintings for your needs.