The Little Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel Photo Print

The "Little" Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1563, is an oil and tempera painting of the famous Biblical tower under construction, colliding with dark clouds in the sky. The book of Genesis relates that after the Flood of Noah, God confused the languages of the tower’s builders and prevented its completion. Bruegel’s lifetime of study from landscape and full mastery of perspective drawing conveys the gargantuan scale of the Biblical structure, dwarfing the surrounding city and ships in the harbor and rising through the clouds as a gigantic, spiraling ziggurat. 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.