Original subtitles

While Michelangelo, Raphael and the other great artists of the Italian Renaissance painted classical and Christian heroes,

in Northern Europe, another less heroic but equally dramatic vision was being forged.

Peter Bruegel's world is filled with the mundane and the macabre, all depicted in unflinchingly intricate detail.

Perhaps the most humane of all the major European painters, his interest in the everyday was epic in itself.

The date and place of Peter Bruegel's birth is uncertain, but he was probably born sometime around 1525 near the town of Breda,

close to the border between modern Holland and Belgium.

We don't know much about Bruegel's early life, but what we can glean comes from an account written 35 years after his death by a man called Carol van Mander.

And van Mander tells us that when Bruegel was still a teenager, he came here to the city of Antwerp to learn the trade of an artist

when he was apprenticed to the studio of a man called Peter Cock van Elst.

Antwerp was one of the best places in Europe to come and make your name as a young artist.

It had a population of over 100,000, which made it bigger than London or Paris, and it was more cosmopolitan.

It had become a banking centre with the first major foreign exchange, and traders from all over the world came to its deep water port.

So there was sugar coming out from the New World, there were spices from the East, there was timber and grain from the Baltic and wool from Britain,

and it made the place very, very wealthy.

In fact, the city was called the Florence of the North because of its banking and its wealth, but also because of its burgeoning art market.

The increased demand for art in the city led to a vibrant cultural scene, with numerous artist workshops, in fact over 300,

dotted here in the back streets of Antwerp, which led to a multiplicity of different styles and talents.

Some painters followed the Italian fashion, painting scenes from the Bible or from classical mythology.

Others favoured home-grown subjects, everyday scenes set in earthy landscapes and painted with meticulous detail.

Although Bruegel trained under an Italianate master, he deliberately rejected the Italian style.

In 1551, Bruegel decided to extend his education in the conventional manner by heading south to Italy.

For three years, he travelled to towns and cities and the countryside, learning what it was to be a painter and meeting up with other artists.

His longest stay was in Rome, but he doesn't seem to have spent much time studying ancient art and architecture,

nor does he seem to have copied the great painters like Raphael and Titian, whose works he must have seen.

Instead, it seems as though in Italy, Bruegel's great teacher was nature.

But it was on his journey home, when crossing the Alps, that Bruegel's natural curiosity was most strongly aroused.

He made extensive drawings of the mountainous landscape, so dramatic compared with the flatlands of his native Low Countries.

And this interest in landscape was put to use when the artist returned to Antwerp.

Bruegel's first commissioned works were landscape drawings for engravings.

In 1555, he was employed by the publisher Hieronymus Koch.

Koch's studio made engravings for a wide public.

Embellishing his experiences, Bruegel placed Flemish villages between alpine crags.

At a time when travelling was more trouble than pleasure, scenes of faraway places, like Italy and the new territories in America or the East,

were avidly bought up as a vicarious form of travel itself.

Cheaper than oil paintings, prints had a wider market.

For their mainly illiterate viewers, they were an ideal type of purchase,

decorative, informative, entertaining and sometimes even exotic.

The engravings of Bruegel's work helped to establish his reputation and gave him a steady source of income.

He was also asked to design scenes like this allegory of sloth,

part of a print series depicting the seven deadly sins,

which had a moral as well as artistic and perhaps comic purpose.

In turn, Bruegel transformed the idea of a pictorial parable into oil painting,

in this stunning picture called the Netherlandish Proverbs.

At first glance, it appears to be a hectic day in any Flemish village.

But look more closely, and it becomes apparent that in fact this is a tableau

containing visual representations of over 80 different contemporary sayings or proverbs,

all illustrating the gamut of human folly and foible.

At the centre is a woman putting a cloak over a man's head,

the Flemish equivalent of making her husband a cuckold.

Here is a pillar-biter, a Flemish term for a hypocrite.

A man falls from an ox onto a donkey.

Today that could be translated as to fall from the frying pan into the fire.

More broadly, the colours of red and blue help to unify the composition,

so that it's a picture that works both in the depiction of specific incidents and as a whole.

In the top right-hand corner is a man relieving himself under the gallows,

from the proverb,

if you fear nothing, you'll come to a sticky end.

Bruegel seems sometimes to revel in the macabre.

But this black humour may have been a direct response to the harshness of the world around him.

The 16th century low countries, modern-day Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg,

were in the throes of a religious revolution.

The region was divided between the growing numbers of Protestant reformers

and those that remained loyal to the Pope and the Catholic Church.

Radical preachers toured the countryside, urging the population to reject Catholicism.

Extremists resorted to violence, smashing sacred images in churches.

Others, like many of Bruegel's friends in Antwerp,

wanted to reform the Catholic Church from within.

To make matters worse, these low countries were ruled by Spain,

the major Catholic superpower of its day.

Spain took a hard line on religion.

Heretics were burnt, cities like Antwerp were milked for their tax revenues,

providing most of the income for the vast Spanish Empire.

For many in the low countries,

foreign rule was at best a potent mix of oppression and exploitation.

Premature death from war, plague or pestilence

was a frequent occurrence for medieval man,

and had occupied the minds of artists well before Bruegel.

Bruegel himself was heavily influenced by works like this one,

from the popular 15th century painter Hieronymus Bosch.

He created fantastic scenes of hell,

filled with demons, monsters and witches.

And Bruegel's preoccupation with Bosch reached its zenith in this picture,

one of the most epic and harrowing portrayals of death ever made.

It's called The Triumph of Death, and was painted by Bruegel around 1562.

And it shows a view of a world overrun by the skeletal armies of death.

But it's a picture where the detail holds the key.

It's very complicated in its composition,

but you can take it in terms of layers.

And in the foreground, these are the main characters,

symbols of a depraved world.

On the left is a king,

who's trying to pick the pocket of death, even as he dies,

but death in turn is stealing from his great barrels of gold coins.

Then there's a cardinal.

He's slumped in death, looking over a housewife,

who clutches her baby,

but her dead body is being savaged by a marauding dog.

Then there's a pilgrim, lying on the ground,

and having his throat cut by a skeleton,

for the souvenirs in his cap.

And moving along,

we see lovers playing music,

symbolic of making music as well as making love,

who are then haunted by the spectre of death,

with a skeleton playing the vial behind them.

Now, if we move to the foreground of the painting,

the energy level increases,

and there's this strong sense of thrust from left to right.

There's a horse and cart, ridden by a skeleton,

full of heads, of skulls,

moving slowly across the painting.

But then look at the centre.

There, on a horse, elongated and skeletal itself,

rides the ultimate spectre of death,

scything at people who are racing towards an open tomb,

whose mouth is being pulled open by a skeleton

on the extreme right-hand side of the painting.

And the detail is incredible here,

and yet all the faces, all the figures, are generalised.

They're all showing something of the same horror.

There's something almost numbing about this particular vision,

where death is being enacted on such a broad scale.

And then we get to the background,

a blasted, desolate landscape where there is no life,

where figures hang by their necks.

They're wrapped around trees.

Some of them are stretched on wheels,

silhouetted against the sky.

Ships explode.

Towers are on fire.

Houses smoulder,

as if to say there is no escape from death.

The painting itself is bound together or unified

by Bruegel's use of colour.

Red and orange and blue and green

are dotted throughout the painting,

complementary colours that pull this otherwise disparate vision

of hell and terror together.

There's also the sense that death is an equaliser.

It doesn't matter whether you're a king, an emperor,

a housewife or a drunk,

death will reach us all in the end.

Bruegel's bleak visions found a ready market.

By his mid-thirties,

he could boast among his clients,

cardinals and wealthy merchants.

His career was about to reach its peak.

Bruegel's fame and success continued to grow in Antwerp,

but so too did the political tensions in his hometown.

In 1555, a new Spanish king came to the throne.

Philip II was a man with a mission,

to smash the Protestants in Europe.

The Inquisition cranked up its torturous activity in the Netherlands,

and any hope for religious tolerance,

which may have existed, was dashed.

The 1560s were years of drought and famine too.

Instead of being compassionate,

the Spanish demanded more taxes,

and discontent became widespread.

In 1563, Bruegel moved here to Brussels,

partly perhaps to escape the mounting religious tension in Antwerp.

Also, he'd just got married to Meichen,

the daughter of his first master, Van Elst,

and it seems that their family wanted Bruegel

to move away from the city where he'd had a few amorous adventurers,

not least an affair with a servant girl,

and start afresh.

But perhaps the strongest reason was patronage,

because this, Brussels,

was the seat of the Spanish court.

During his time in Brussels,

Bruegel worked like a man possessed.

30 out of the 40 paintings which have survived

were done in the six years he spent in this house.

Bruegel's paintings don't give that much away about his politics.

If he was against the Spanish occupation,

he kept it quiet.

The consequences of being discovered

would have incurred the death penalty.

In 1566, Spain's patience with the rebellious Low Countries snapped

and a savage suppression began.

Here we're given an insight into Bruegel's frame of mind.

Painted in the same year as the Crisis,

the Massacre of the Innocents

is a biblical story set in a contemporary Flemish village,

and Bruegel seems to be alluding to the terror of the times.

Herod's mass slaughter of the male children of Bethlehem

could have been used by Bruegel

subtly to parallel the religious upheaval in his own time.

The commander of the troops quietly overseeing the murders

is thought to be the hated Spanish commander,

the Duke of Alva.

Look at the babies and toddlers left to die on the ground.

In later years,

these images were thought to be so horrific

they were painted over into sacks of grain.

Despite the misery around him,

Bruegel continued to work feverishly,

and his old patrons in Antwerp

remained loyal to the painter.

In 1565,

the wealthy Antwerp merchant,

Nicholas Jongerlinck,

commissioned Bruegel

to do an ambitious decorative scheme

for his new villa just outside the city walls.

Bruegel effectively produced

a frieze-like series of pictures

that ran around the top of the room

and that wrestled with one of the oldest subjects

in the history of art,

a kind of pictorial calendar

of the unfolding months or seasons.

Initially, art historians thought

there were 12 pictures in the series,

but now they're of the opinion

that there were just six,

five of which still remain,

and three of which are here

in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

And what Bruegel does

is something more profound

than simply an illustration

month by month of the year unfolding.

Instead,

we get a composite work of art

that shows a panorama

of mankind's relationship

with the natural world around him.

And the series begins

with this one.

It's called Hunters in the Snow,

and it's one of the most famous

snow scenes ever painted.

This is the depths of winter,

December or January time,

and what we see

are three hunters

plodding through the snow,

their thin, sleek dogs,

slightly undernourished,

following in their wake,

and the results of their labours

are clear.

One mangy fox.

All around the picture,

which is dominated

by two colours,

icy white

and this freezing cold grey green,

we see men and women at work.

There's a woman

lugging an enormous bunch

of firewood across a bridge.

There's a man

pulling his horse and cart.

There's also two figures

racing towards a barn

and house in the distance

with ladders

because the chimney's on fire.

But amidst all this endurance,

humanity's at play too.

This is an image of work

and of play.

So across these frozen fields,

we see people playing ice hockey.

They're bowling.

They're curling.

They're also just skating.

And in fact,

it looks to me

rather like some abstract ballet

taking place,

a picture within a picture.

And then we see

a bit of warmth,

the colours of brown

dotted around,

and this fire

with the pub sign

hanging off,

threatening to fall into it,

as if to remind us

that humanity lives

a fairly precipitous existence.

And then we look again

at the picture,

and we're seeing it

almost from a bird's eye view,

and as if to remind us that,

Bruegel puts birds all over,

and this bird in flight

that soars

right across the centre

of our vision.

But we look down

at the hunters,

who in turn

are about to walk down

this incredibly steep incline.

And then look at these trees

that march their way

down the hill,

and that draws

our line of vision

right across

to this phenomenal

mountain scene,

this alpine scene

that surely is reminiscent

of Bruegel's own journey

across the Alps

when he was a younger man.

And so there's this sense

of thrust of a diagonal

from left to right

that also reminds us

that although this is

a wonderfully self-contained image,

at the same time,

it's an image

that's part of a series,

and our eyes are drawn

out of the picture

and on to the next one.

And in the second

in the series,

you can pick up

with the mountains

in the top left-hand corner,

your eyes drawn

across this stormy scene

where boats are being

battered and tossed around

on this turbulent sea,

and then Bruegel

thrusts the image

of humanity

closer up against our faces,

into our eyes,

and we get this

wonderful vignette

of human beings

trying to struggle

against the elements

of repairing their houses,

of trimming their trees,

of gathering firewood,

but also of partying.

Now, quite while they're partying,

still in the depths of winter,

might be a mystery

when you first look

at the painting,

but the paper hat

and the fact

there's a man

stuffing waffles

into his face

seems to lend us

to interpret this

as being Shrove Tuesday,

the beginning of Lent.

So, in fact,

the picture is either

February or March,

depending on when Easter falls.

And then we look

into the distance

and see the details

and look in the left-hand corner

and there's a figure

staggered out of a pub,

leaning up against a wall,

relieving himself

whilst a fiddler plays.

And what we get

is humour as well

as humanity

and we get an image

that is sympathetic

without ever being sentimentalising

and also

without being judgmental.

The series was painted

at remarkable speed,

completed in just over a year.

Either because of the time restraints

or because the paintings

were to be viewed

from quite a distance,

Bruegel applied his paint

very thinly,

deftly deceiving the eye

with a few superb strokes

of his brush.

Bruegel's patrons came

from the metropolitan elite

of his day,

wealthy businessmen,

cartographers,

even cardinals.

But in his later work,

he developed an interest

in the lives

of the less wealthy folk

who inhabited

small towns and villages,

all of which he depicted

with customary detail

and a remarkable insight.

Bruegel set out

to gain first-hand experience

of what he referred to

as peasant life.

According to his biographer,

the painter regularly met

with a close friend

called Hans Frankert,

himself a wealthy merchant,

and together

they would dress up

as peasants.

And, claiming to be related

to the bride or groom,

they would gate-crash

weddings or parties.

When Bruegel was

in his early 40s,

there was a marked change

in both the style

and approach to painting,

which is wonderfully exemplified

in this picture.

It's called

the peasant wedding feast,

and it shows us inside,

which is rare in Bruegel's art,

but more crucially,

we get a close-up vision

of action.

In fact, it makes us

much more actively involved

and gives a sense

that Bruegel himself

was more actively involved

rather than the dispassionate observer

looking at nature

and humanity

in tiny detail from afar.

And what we see

are individual faces

of the people

at this country wedding

brought to life

with close attention

to detail.

We see the bride herself

with a wonderful beatified

or maybe bemused expression

on her face.

There's a paper crown

above her head.

Her parents are to her right

and no one can quite see

where her bridegroom is,

where the man she's married is.

Now, in fact,

he may well be serving

and there was

a Netherlandish proverb

that said

it was a poor man

that was absent

from his own wedding.

Also, I love the expression

on the bride's father's face.

Slightly grumpy

because he's footing

the bill for all this.

But there is a kind

of moral dimension

to the way this painting

First of all, religious.

People have looked at this

and quite rightly said,

well, there are precedents

for painting wedding feasts.

There's the wedding

at Cana from the Bible

where Christ turns water

into wine.

But in pictures

of that subject

and also

in aristocratic banquets,

no one ever eats the food.

The food is wonderfully portrayed

but no one ever devours it.

Now, Bruegel here

takes a totally different view.

People are eating.

They're eating voraciously.

Look at the child there

who scraped the bowl out

with his finger

and he's licking his finger.

He's scraping the bowl clean.

But there's a second

moral dimension

which is the whole idea

of gluttony.

Now, in the early 1560s

there were raging famines

in the Netherlands.

There'd also been an edict

from the imperial court

to say that country weddings

could have no more

than 20 people at them.

If you count the numbers

of people actually attending

the banquet sitting

around the table

it's just under 20.

But look in the far

right-hand part

of the painting.

A monk talks to a wealthy man.

It's almost a debate

about perhaps

what is happening here

or the nature of excess.

But when I look

at this picture

I don't see Bruegel

producing a picture sermon

about the nature of excess

that's going on

in this particular scene.

I think

the way he paints

the food

and the way he paints

the peasants themselves

and the way that they're

devouring the food

makes it a serious business.

It makes it a celebration

if you like

of simple bounty.

The world had changed

so radically

from the time

of Bruegel's birth

only 40 years

or so before.

Civil war tore apart

the low countries

and Antwerp

was fast losing

its prominent position

as a world trading centre.

A year after

Bruegel's series

of the months

were hung

in Jongerling's

grand villa

the businessman

himself went bust.

His new house

and all his possessions

were sold off

including his collection

of 16 paintings

by Bruegel.

Back in Brussels

the artist himself

fared better

gaining a commission

to design some tapestries

to celebrate

the completion

of the Brussels

Antwerp Canal

in 1565.

But the political

climate was still

very tense

and Bruegel

kept an increasingly

low profile.

On his deathbed

in order to protect

his family

he ordered his wife

to destroy

any paintings

in the house

which might be

politically dangerous.

Still only in his

early 40s

Bruegel died

in 1569.

The painter's popularity

continued to grow

after his death.

His work was collected

by Habsburg emperors

and then by later

great painters

such as Rubens

and Rembrandt.

His reputation

was also enhanced

by his offspring

and his sons

and grandsons

became accomplished

painters

in their own right.

More broadly

Bruegel founded

a whole tradition

of low-life painting

in the Netherlands

creating an alternative

vision

to the idealised world

of the Italian Renaissance.

and then by the

existence

and before