Belgium: / Europe: 'The Triumph of Death' by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1562

The Triumph of Death is an oil painting on panel, painted c. 1562 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It is in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

The painting is a panoramic landscape: the sky in the distance is blackened by smoke from burning cities and the sea is littered with shipwrecks. Armies of skeletons advance on the living, who either flee in terror or try vainly to fight back. In the foreground, skeletons haul a wagon full of skulls, and ring the bell that signifies the death knell of the world. A fool plays the lute while a skeleton behind him plays along; a starving dog nibbles at the face of a child; a cross sits in the center of the painting. People are herded into a trap decorated with crosses, while a skeleton on horseback kills people with a scythe. The painting depicts people of different social backgrounds – from peasants and soldiers to nobles as well as a king and a cardinal – being taken by death indiscriminately.

The painting shows aspects of everyday life in the mid-sixteenth century. Clothes are clearly depicted, as are pastimes such as playing cards and backgammon. It shows objects such as musical instruments, an early mechanical clock, scenes including a funeral service, and a common method of execution: being lashed to a cartwheel mounted on a vertical pole.

Pieter Bruegel's The Triumph of Death is considered to reflect the social upheaval and terror that followed the plague which devastated medieval Europe

Copyright:

Supplier: CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Credit:

Pictures From History