Status Updates From Bruegel: The Complete Paint...

Snow inside. Snow outside. In Bruegel's paintings and out my windows. The perfect way to spend a winter's evening.

The cover picture of snow was my favorite until I saw The Peasant Wedding. This and other scenes from ordinary life are a joy. I hear the music and see the room whirl. I am heated from dancing and thirsty for drink.

This is not the Bruegel I thought I knew. The joy on pages 48 and 49 is worth the price of the book. "Children's Games" was painted in 1560 but is as true today, wherever you find children and they are left to their own devices to have fun. Climbing trees, chasing one another, hitting things with sticks, and - my favorite when a child - spinning around and around until you're dizzy are pictured here.

Dulle Griet
This amazing painting was bought in 1600 by the Hapsburgs, taken to Prague where from it was plundered by the Swedes in the 30 years war. It vanishes from the Swedish roysl collection in the 17th century, reappears in cologne in 1894 when Fritz Mayer van den Bergh bought it fir the bargain price of 390 marks and took it to Antwerp.

Children's games.
The final section of the book is a register of each of Brueghel's known pictures.

Although he was a celebrated artist even a couple of generations after his death. I am amazed to read that the ownership history of the works is extremely patchy. This one materialises in 1594 when the Hapsburg archduke buys it and it stays in that families possession going from Brussels to Prague to Vienna

Discussion of interpretation of Bruegel's "the blind leading the blind".

My question is, does the artist have convictions that they are trying to share with us, or are they market/patron orientated and depicting something that they think will sell or please a patron?

I don't think that this question is answerable in the case of Bruegel ( or if it is the author has not demonstrated that).