The Sermon of St John the Baptist (1566)
by Pieter BRUEGEL the Elder

Karel van Mander, in his lives of the Netherlandish painters, has described how Pieter Bruegel would regularly visit a village wedding or a fair, mixing with the crowd and making sketches of the people and their manners and clothes. He made use of these studies in his pictures of Biblical episodes, which, for the most part, served only as a pretext for depicting the everyday life of Flanders.

In this picture of St John the Baptist we recognize a village preacher at one of the religious congregations which were a feature of the Reformation. The figure of St John, however, is almost lost in the heart of the picture, the principal subject being the motley and colourful crowd - a haphazard congregation of believers, or people merely curious to see what was going on, some attentive, some bored. An abundance of detail combined with dramatic intensity, integration of figures with landscape and an expressive power unequalled in its vividness are the principal characteristics of this masterpiece.

A number of copies of this picture, both contemporary and dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, have come down to us, and many of them are in museums in Flanders (Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels), as well as in Bonn, Schwerin, Leningrad, Munich and Cracow, mostly produced with the co-operation of his sons, Pieter and Jan, and his workshop employees.

Preview Picture Data File Info Comment
The Sermon of St John the Baptist
1566
Oil on wood, 95 x 160,5 cm
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

1457*850
True Color
167 Kb



The Sermon of St John the Baptist (detail)
1566
Oil on wood
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

1101*892
True Color
122 Kb



The Sermon of St John the Baptist (detail)
1566
Oil on wood
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

1000*1209
True Color
150 Kb



The Sermon of St John the Baptist (detail)
1566
Oil on wood
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

552*787
True Color
52 Kb



The Sermon of St John the Baptist (detail)
1566
Oil on wood
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

1137*659
True Color
104 Kb



The Sermon of St John the Baptist (detail)
1566
Oil on wood
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

815*680
True Color
157 Kb



The Sermon of St John the Baptist (detail)
1566
Oil on wood
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

850*1118
True Color
165 Kb



The Sermon of St John the Baptist (detail)
1566
Oil on wood
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

782*732
True Color
128 Kb



The Sermon of St John the Baptist (detail)
1566
Oil on wood
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

718*846
True Color
170 Kb



The Sermon of St John the Baptist (detail)
1566
Oil on wood
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

817*839
True Color
101 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