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Pieter Bruegel, the Elder

c. 1525-1569 Netherlands/Northern Renaissance

Brief Biography-Scholars can only establish a few facts about Pieter Bruegel’s life, a painter of comic peasant scenes. He was born in the town of Breda in the duchy of Brabant. Pieter Coecke van Aelst apprenticed him, and in 1551, he became a member of the painter's guild in Antwerp before travelling to Rome. On his way there, he made sketches of the Alps, which he later incorporated into paintings such as Hunters in the Snow.
He worked for the publisher and print-seller Jerome Cock designing engravings for proverbs after he returned to Antwerp in 1555. During this time, the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch influenced his work.
In 1562 he did drawings in Amsterdam before going to Brussels and marrying Mayken, the daughter of Pieter Coecke, his former master. Brussels gave him a leaning towards the Italian style through the influence of Raphael's tapestries, and he received the commission for The Months of the Year. He spent the last six years of his life in Brussels.

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wedding dance
in the open air