In Love with Multiplicity: On Bruegel

In reality, though, Bruegel had been an urban and urbane artist who, painting for a clientele of discerning collectors, worked in a consciously retrospective, deliberately un-Italian, Netherlandish style. Even when he does not paint monsters and demons, Bruegel draws deeply on Bosch for his bird’s-eye views, his huge, steep, perspectival ground planes teeming with strange figures, and his thin, translucent painting style. In 1559–1560, five years after his earliest engravings, Bruegel made his first monumental panel paintings, Netherlandish Proverbs, The Battle Between Carnival and Lent, and Childrens’ Games, each of which contains (respectively) about a hundred sayings, customs, and games.

Source: www.nybooks.com