Post by Teacher Bot on Oct 31, 2012 18:45:10 GMT -5
Pieter Bruegel ( PE ter BROY gul) was born in Belgium. (Sometimes his name is spelled Brueghel .) In 1551 he became an apprentice of an artist, Aelst. He traveled to Italy about that time and painted many pictures, mostly landscapes. He was about 26 years old at the time. He studied art with Pieter Coeck and married his daughter Maiken. They moved to Brussels to live.
His paintings were very popular in his time, and are still popular today, over 400 years later.
In the painting "Children's Games", he shows children playing all sorts of games. Children today still play versions of some of the games shown.
He liked to paint a lot of small figures in a large space.
Another well-known painting by Bruegel is The Tower of Babel which depicts the Bible story of the efforts of men who aspired to build a city and a tower which would reach to heaven. In the same year 1563 he also painted a smaller picture of the tower of Babel which is called The Little Tower of Babel.
According to one writer who lived during Bruegel's time, the artist would show up uninvited at local weddings and village fairs. If he and his friend were going to a wedding, they would dress up as peasants, buy gifts for the bride and groom, pretend to be friends of the families and "crash" the party. They would mingle among the guests and visit with them. In this way he got ideas for his paintings and they were authentic.