Children's Games (1559-60)
by Pieter BRUEGEL the Elder

The painting is referred to as the "encyclopaedia of Flemish children's games". It represents about 84 games some of them are practiced until present days. Bruegel has depicted more than 250 children here. Such a catalogue of games, such an enumeration of children's methods for exercising the body and preparing for the adult world through imitation, is without parallel in the history of art.

The subject of childhood had hitherto been virtually ignored in western painting and thought. Childhood was not viewed as a phase of life with any requirements of its own, but merely as the preliminary stage to adulthood. Children were treated as little adults, as the clothing portrayed in Bruegel's picture indicates: the girls' aprons and bonnets resembled those of their mothers, while the boys' trousers, jerkins and jackets echoed those worn by their fathers. Moreover, there were hardly any toys: only tops, hobby-horses, dolls, and windmills on long sticks. Most of Bruegel's children are managing without toys or making do with pigs' bladders, knucklebones, caps, barrels, hoops - such things, in other words, as could be found simply lying about.

Preview Picture Data File Info Comment
Children's Games
1559-60
Oil on wood, 118 x 161 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

1001*712
True Color
180 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

900*1111
True Color
180 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

1144*900
True Color
173 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

1400*649
True Color
186 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

900*1027
True Color
153 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

733*899
True Color
83 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

727*899
True Color
84 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

733*900
True Color
87 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

732*888
True Color
82 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

727*889
True Color
77 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

733*888
True Color
79 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

734*892
True Color
75 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

729*891
True Color
83 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

734*889
True Color
83 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

732*898
True Color
81 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

728*899
True Color
85 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

734*899
True Color
80 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

731*883
True Color
80 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

728*882
True Color
83 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

732*882
True Color
68 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

730*893
True Color
84 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

730*894
True Color
89 Kb



Children's Games (detail)
1559-60
Oil on wood, width of detail 12 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

733*890
True Color
79 Kb




Summary of works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Paintings
Landscapes | Children's games | Proverbs
Village life | Demons and devils | Tower of Babel
Series of Months | Religious themes | St John the Baptist
Peasant life | Large figures | Miscellaneous
Graphics