Artsz.org

Pieter Brueghel was a Renaissance painter, he was born in 1525 and died in 1569 in the Netherlands. He was best known for his landscapes and peasant scenes which always depicted some every day event or story just as in the above painting of the local children playing.

In his later life Brueghel specialized in peasant life landscapes and he is known as one of the first painters to paint landscapes for the sake of their beauty and not as a backdrop for a portrait. All of his landscapes portray some kind of a story, as you can tell in the painting “The Triumph of Death.” He is known to have paid a great deal of attention to the manners and lifestyle of peasants, which was very rare in Brueghel’s time. He painted scenes that included agriculture, festivals, games, meals and even hunts.

His paintings are also filled with iconographic symbols of social and religious life in his time. As an example lets take “Children’s Games.” In this painting there are many references to the types of games children of the period played. His paintings today are priceless because they give us a glimpse of what life really was like during this period.

The Renaissance period proved to be a turning point of sorts for oil portrayers of the time. Based on a natural curiosity for nature and the classical Greek and Roman life – portraits of those times were greatly admired and encouraged. Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa painting was one of the most outstanding works of this period. It represents the face of an unknown woman who is smiling. However, there has been considerable debate as to the gender of the subject – because many of the features indicate a synergy between masculine and feminine. It is this subtlety and minute nuances which differentiated the great oil portraitists from the more mediocre ones. In fact it is said that no matter which angle you look at the painting, the Mona Lisa always keeps looking at you.