Pieter Brueghel the Elder: The Triumph of Death (1562)

(Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain)

A painting by the Flemish artist Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525-1569). This rather gruesome painting depicts a hell on Earth with a landscape, blackened, desolate and devoid of any life as far as the eye can see, even the sea is littered with shipwrecks. In this landscape an army of skeletons advances upon the living, being killed in all sort of ways. This subject is a so-called 'Dance of Death', a late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's station in life, the Dance of Death unites all. We can see this also in this painting - we can see a king (lower left), soldiers (lower right), children (center), a cardinal (to the right of the king, a skeleton is wearing his red galero). At the top of the painting ships are aflame or sunk in a harbor while smoke rises from distant towers. Spread along the painting you can also see aspects of everyday life in the sixteenth century: on the death cart a skeleton is playing a hurdy-gurdy while in the right corner we can see playing cards and backgammon. This painting was created in 1562.