BRUEGEL, PIETER, THE ELDER

born c. 1525, , probably Breda, duchy of Brabant [now in The Netherlands] died Sept. 5/9, 1569, Brussels [now in Belgium] Peasant Dance, oil on wood by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1568; in the Kunsthistorisches byname Peasant Bruegel, Dutch Pieter Bruegel De Oudere, or Boeren Bruegel, Bruegel also spelled Brueghel, or Breughel the greatest Flemish painter of the 16th century, whose landscapes and vigorous, often witty scenes of peasant life are particularly renowned (see photograph). Since Bruegel signed and dated many of his works, his artistic evolution can be traced from the early landscapes, in which he shows affinity with the Flemish 16th-century landscape tradition, to his last works, which are Italianate. He exerted a strong influence on painting in the Low Countries, and through his sons Jan and Pieter he became the ancestor of a dynasty of painters that survived into the 18th century. Additional reading R.H. Marijnissen, Bruegel the Elder (1969), is a bibliography. F. Grossmann, Pieter Bruegel: Complete Edition of the Paintings, 3rd ed. rev. (1973), contains a detailed biography and includes a review of contemporary and later opinions and new interpretations. Charles de Tolnay, The Drawings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1952), offers a fundamental, critical study of the drawings, with a catalog. Ludwig Munz, The Drawings (1961), assesses Bruegel's drawing technique, with a catalog differing in part from de Tolnay's. H. Arthur Klein (ed.), Graphic Worlds of Peter Bruegel the Elder (1963), provides the only survey in English of the engravings after designs by Bruegel, useful though not based on original research. Walter S. Gibson, Bruegel (1977); Piero Bianconi, Bruegel (1979); and Bruegel (1984), with text, catalog, and notes by R.H. Marijnissen and photographs by M. Seidel, summarize the artist's career and review theories about his life and works.