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The Triumph of Death

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1560s

Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Triumph of Death belongs to the Museo del Prado, which holds it in its collection. Painted in the 1560s, it shows a vast landscape overrun by armies of skeletons, and it rewards slow, close looking at its many small scenes.

Where to see it

The Triumph of Death is in the collection of the Museo del Prado. Display arrangements can change, so check the Museo del Prado's official website for current display status and visiting information before you go.

What to look for in person

An army of the dead

Step back first and take in the whole panel. Death does not come for one person here; it arrives as an organized army. Ranks of skeletons advance from the left, some carrying shields like soldiers in formation. Near the center, a skeleton on a gaunt horse swings a scythe and drives a crowd of panicked people toward a huge box-like trap marked with crosses. Follow the movement across the picture from left to right and notice how every path for escape seems to be blocked.

Every rank of society

Look closely at the lower left corner. A king lies collapsing while a skeleton holds up an hourglass to him, and another skeleton helps itself to his coins. Nearby, a churchman is also seized. Elsewhere you can find ordinary people: travelers, a mother, figures caught at a meal. Bruegel draws on the long medieval tradition of the Dance of Death, in which death treats the powerful and the poor alike. Searching out these individual figures is one of the best ways to spend time in front of the painting.

The lovers in the corner

Before you leave, look at the lower right corner. A young couple sits absorbed in music: the man plays a lute and the woman looks at a sheet of music, apparently unaware of what is happening around them. Behind them, a skeleton joins in with its own instrument. Close by, a feast has been overturned and a figure tries to hide under a table. This quiet corner sets human distraction and pleasure against the chaos filling the rest of the scene.

About the painting

The Triumph of Death is a work by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the Netherlandish painter known for crowded, highly detailed scenes of human life and landscape. The Museo del Prado dates it to the 1560s, and the panel measures 117 by 162 cm. At that size the picture is large enough to read from a distance, yet much of its meaning lies in small details that need to be viewed up close. The setting is a wide, barren landscape seen from a high viewpoint. Trees are bare, fires burn on the horizon, ships founder at sea, and the hills hold gallows and wheels raised on poles, the instruments of execution familiar to Bruegel's viewers. Across this ruined world, skeletons attack the living, ring bells, dig and drag, and herd people toward their end. The painting draws on themes that were well established in European art before Bruegel, especially the Dance of Death, which reminded viewers that no one, whatever their wealth or position, could avoid mortality. Art historians also commonly connect its imaginative, nightmarish quality to the earlier work of Hieronymus Bosch. Bruegel's own contribution is the way he turns these ideas into a single panoramic scene filled with many separate episodes. For visitors, the best approach is to look in stages: first the overall sweep of the landscape and the movement of the skeleton army, then the lower corners, where the most carefully characterized figures appear. The painting is grim, but it is also inventive and closely observed.

Key facts

More by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

• Two Chained Monkeys — Gemäldegalerie Berlin
• The Beggars — Louvre Museum
• The Hunters in the Snow — Kunsthistorisches Museum
• Netherlandish Proverbs — Gemäldegalerie Berlin
• The Land of Cockaigne — Alte Pinakothek
• The Fall of the Rebel Angels
• The Peasant Wedding — Kunsthistorisches Museum
• The Fight Between Carnival and Lent — Kunsthistorisches Museum
• Children's Games — Kunsthistorisches Museum
• The Harvesters — Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Dull Gret
• The Peasant Dance — Kunsthistorisches Museum

Sources

• Wikidata Q644856
• content3.cdnprado.net
• museodelprado.es
• www.museodelprado.es