Childrens Games by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Children's Games by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1560, is an oil and tempera painting of a panoramic landscape of a town square. Countless figures of children run and play in the streets in a veritable catalogue of every type of children’s game: dolls, ball, tiddlywinks, hoops, handstands, and the rest. After a time the viewer may notice that the entire city is taken over by children at play, a possible witty comment or allegory by Bruegel on the world of adults. Pieter Bruegel (Brueghel) the Elder (c. 1525 - 1569) was a Dutch/Flemish painter and printmaker of the Northern Renaissance. Among the first artists to incorporate subject matter from landscape and the life of common people, Bruegel all but invented the art of Dutch genre painting. Bruegel painted a number of religious works but is best known for his lively, allegorical paintings of peasants and witty commentary and on life, sin and virtue. His innovative compositions and carefully observed, realistic details influenced many generations of artists, from Rembrandt through the Realists of the modern era.