Pieter Bruegel the Elder- Oil Painting Painter Biography:

Pieter Bruegel (Brueghel) the Elder ( c. 1525 – 9 September 1569) was a Flemish Renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so called genre painting). He is sometimes referred to as the "Peasant Bruegel." From 1559 he dropped the 'h' from his name and signed his paintings as Bruegel.
 
Life：

According to some sources he was born in Breugel near the (Dutch) town of Breda. There are however also records that show that he was born in Breda, and there is some uncertainty whether the (now Belgian) town of Bree, called Breda in Latin, is meant. He was an apprentice of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, whose daughter Mayken he later married. He spent some time in France and Italy, and then went to Antwerp, where in 1551 he was accepted as a master in the painter's guild. He traveled to Italy soon after, and then returned to Antwerp before settling in Brussels permanently 10 years later.

He received the nickname 'Peasant Bruegel' or 'Bruegel the Peasant' for his alleged practice of dressing up like a peasant in order to mingle at weddings and other celebrations, thereby gaining inspiration and authentic details for his genre paintings. He died in Brussels on 9 September 1569 and was buried in the Kapellekerk.

Historical Background：

Bruegel was born at a time of extensive change in Western Europe. Humanist ideals from the previous century influenced artists and scholars in Europe. Italy was at the end of their High Renaissance of arts and culture, when artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci painted their masterpieces. In 1517, about eight years before Bruegel's birth, Martin Luther created his Ninety-Five Theses and began the Protestant Reformation in neighboring Germany. The Catholic Church impinged increasingly more upon the European way of life and art. Perhaps most importantly for artists, the Council of Trent in 1545 determined what art was appropriate in Catholic states. At this time, the Netherlands was divided into seventeen provinces, some of which wanted separation from the Catholic Church, which controlled the provinces from their bastion in Spain. The Netherlands were influenced by the newly Lutheran Germany to the east and the newly Anglican England to the west, as evidenced by the rise of Protestantism. Since the Hapsburg monarchs of Spain were the enforcers of the Catholic Church and the Catholic Counter-Reformation in Western Europe, Protestantism in the Netherlands came heavily under fire. The Spanish monarch, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, passed the Edict of Blood in 1550. Death was the penalty for heresy to the Catholic Church; however, Charles did not enforce this edict. His son, Philip II of Spain, whose actions became a source of great unrest in the Netherlands during the 1560s, enforced the Edict of Blood. Calvinism became increasingly popular in the Netherlands despite the threat of death. Philip’s murder plot against a Netherlandish prince, William the Silent, the ever present Spanish soldiers led by the hated Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba, and Calvinist riots brought the Netherlands to the brink of rebellion. This was the atmosphere in which Bruegel reached the height of his career as a painter. Two years before Bruegel's death, the Eighty Years' War began between the Netherlands (led by William the Silent) and Spain. Although Bruegel did not live to see it, seven provinces became Protestant, while the other ten remained under Catholic control at the end of the war.

Painting Themes：

Pieter Bruegel the Elder specialized in genre paintings populated by peasants, often with a landscape element, but he also painted religious works. Making the life and manners of peasants the main focus of a work was rare in painting in Brueghel's time, and he was a pioneer of the Netherlandish genre painting. 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 (many of them still in use in current Dutch or Flemish), and Children's Games shows the variety of amusements enjoyed by young people. 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 spirit and comic power, he created some of the early images of acute social protest in art history. Examples include paintings such as 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 resulting from conflicts between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformation.

Refer to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder#Works

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