Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Earth, Peasants and the Coming Storm

Pieter Bruegel the Elder is one of the most radical figures in the history of painting. In an age of religious upheaval and political terror — the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands, the beginning of the Dutch Revolt — Bruegel turned to the lives of ordinary people, the rhythm of the seasons and the deep strangeness of Flemish proverb and folklore. In doing so he invented an entirely new visual language, one that would underpin the great age of Dutch and Flemish painting that followed. With scathing wit and tender pathos, his representations of humankind are some of the most memorable ever to have been created.