Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a painter from the Low Countries and one of the greatest artists of the northern Renaissance. Born around 1525, he became famous for lively scenes of peasant life, weddings, dances, harvests, and games, painted with warmth, humor, and sharp observation. Rather than gods and nobles, he made ordinary country people the heroes of his art.

He also painted grand landscapes with tiny figures and packed, panoramic scenes full of proverbs and moral lessons. His snowy winter scene of hunters trudging home is one of the best loved paintings of the season ever made. Bruegel founded a whole dynasty of painters, and his vivid, humane pictures of everyday life still feel remarkably alive.