Painting Study - Brueghel - The Triumph Of Death

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1562-3 A brutal horrific, uncompromising study of Death's triumph over humanity and life in a grim Apocalyptic vision. An army of skeletal warriors swarm over the people of a medieval town, slaughtering everyone in sight, young, old, male, female, king and jester alike. People hang from stakes, lie drowned in streams, fall from rocks, etc. A large heap of corpses is placed close to the foreground. the few survivors running, hiding or fighting to survive are just stalling off the inevitable. Dogs pick at carcasses, horses look emaciated, while the skeletal Deaths take away carts filled with gold - the spoils of the war they have won. In the background, houses burn, and gibbets dot the skyline with hanging figures in many. The ground is barren and desolate. Brueghel was heavily influenced by the sheer pessimism of Bosch in creating this nightmare vision of our doom, which is far more bleak than any of his often amusing later paintings. Arthur Chappell