\ATXsh255 Originally from northern Brabant, Pieter Bruegel served his apprenticeship in Antwerp,
where he enrolled, in 1551, in the cityÆs association of artists, the Guild of St. Luke. The following year he was on his way to Italy: he traveled as far as Naples and Sicily, while his stay in Rome is documented by engravings made from his drawings. Th
e production of drawings for engravers remained his main activity even after his return to Antwerp in 1554, and there is no record of his work as a painter until the fifties. It was during this period that he painted the \i Flemish Proverbs\i0 (Berlin,
Staatliches Museum) and the \i Contrast of Carnival and Lent\i0 (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), executed in 1559. In his paintings of religious subjects, such as the \i Tower of Babel\i0 (two versions, in Vienna and Siena) or the \i Adoration of th
e Magi\i0 in London, a greater solidity of composition emerges, especially in the representation of the landscape. In his last works, such as the \i Nuptial Dance\i0 in Detroit, the \i Parable of the Blind\i0 (Naples, Galleria di Capodimonte), the \i
Peasant Wedding\i0 in Pommersfelden, and the \i Land of Cockaigne\i0 , he displays great freedom and stylistic originality. Here his brushwork grows broader and livelier with a surprising use of foreshortening and results of extraordinary narrative viva
city, which make Bruegel one of the great painters of the late Flemish Renaissance.\ATXsh4607
