Pieter Bruegel: Drawing the World

Pieter Bruegel the Elder is considered the greatest Netherlandish graphic artist of the 16th century. Even during his lifetime his drawings were highly regarded and many were widely distributed as references for copperplate engravings. Drawing on the pictorial tradition of earlier generations of artists, Bruegel introduced completely new ideas with regard to both subject and form.

On the eve of the Dutch War of Independence against Spanish hegemony, in a time of political, social and religious change, Pieter Bruegel (ca. 1525 – 1569) created an equally complex pictorial world. Humorous and down-to-earth, sharp-witted and deeply critical, he reflected on the society of his time. The lavishly illustrated catalogue illuminates Bruegel’s artistic origins and offers an overview of his entire graphical oeuvre which unites contrasting subjects such as “Peasant Bruegel”; Bruegel as the “second Hieronymus Bosch”; as an innovator in landscape art; and as a satirical moralist.

• Masterpieces on paper
• Recontextualized: Bruegel and the pictorial tradition
• First comprehensive index of Bruegel’s prints at the Albertina in Vienna