Pieter Bruegel and the Idea of Human Nature (Renaissance Lives)
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About this book
A fresh account of the life ideas and art of the beloved Northern Renaissance master. In sixteenth-century Northern Europe during a time of increasing religious and political conflict Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel explored how people perceived human nature. Bruegel turned his critical eye and peerless paintbrush to mankinds labors and pleasures its foibles and rituals of daily life portraying landscapes peasant life and biblical scenes in startling detail. Much like the great humanist scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam Bruegel questioned how well we really know ourselves and also how we know or visually read others. His work often represented mankinds ignorance and insignificance emphasizing the futility of ambition and the absurdity of pride. This superbly illustrated volume examines how Bruegels art and ideas enabled people to ponder what it meant to be human. Published to coincide with the four-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of Bruegels death it will appeal to all those interested in art and philosophy the Renaissance and Flemish painting.
