Die schmutzige Braut oder Die Hochzeit von Mopsus und Nisa

Pieter Bruegel the Elder is the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes. Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525–1569) was a pioneering Flemish Renaissance painter and printmaker known for his detailed landscapes and peasant scenes. Early in his life, he was a student of the painter Pieter Kroke van Aelst, and in 1551, at about the age of 26, he was admitted to the painters' guild in Antwerp as a master painter. Bruegel settled fairly early in Antwerp, where he became a master in the painters’ Guild of Saint Luke between 1551 and 1552. After a trip to Italy, he began a long-standing association with Hieronymus Cock, whose Antwerp publishing house. Between 1555 and 1563, Bruegel made over forty designs for engravings, capitalizing on the strong market demand for images in the style or manner of Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1450–1516). Known as "Elder", to distinguish him from his elder son, also an artist, Pieter Bruegel was the greatest member of a large family of artists active for four generations. He was an inventive painter and draftsman. Bruegel translated moralizing subjects into the vernacular language in his original drawings and paintings, such as Netherlandish Proverbs which depicts over 100 proverbs in the familiar setting of a Flemish village. A number of Bruegel’s paintings focus on the lives of Flemish villages, which earned him the nickname “peasant Bruegel”. In religious or mythological depictions, such as the Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Bruegel expanded the perspective to make the action a part of a broad scenery demonstrating the artist’s greatest innovation. For the Antwerp home of the wealthy merchant Niclaes Jongelinck, Bruegel made a series of paintings representing the Seasons, of which five survive: Gloomy Day, Return of the Herd, Hunters in the Snow (all Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), Haymaking (Národní Galerie, Prague), and The Harvesters. These panoramic compositions represent a universal vision of the world.

Das holländische Goldene Zeitalter war eine Zeit von 1581 bis 1672, als die Niederlande das "holländische Wunder" erlebten, das zur führenden maritimen und wirtschaftlichen Macht wurde. 1568 begannen die sieben Provinzen einen Aufstand gegen Philipp II. von Spanien, der zum Achtzigjährigen Krieg mit Spanien und zum Dreißigjährigen Krieg zwischen anderen europäischen Supermächten führte. Protestanten zogen von den südlichen in die nördlichen Niederlande, viele ließen sich in Amsterdam nieder und verwandelten die Hafenstadt bis 1630 in eines der wichtigsten Handelszentren der Welt. Neben der Migration von Protestanten gab es auch Zuströme von Flüchtlingen, die zuvor vor religiöser Verfolgung geflohen waren, insbesondere sephardische Juden aus Portugal und Spanien und Protestanten aus Frankreich. Die Katholiken bewegten sich in die andere Richtung - in die südlichen Provinzen, das moderne Belgien. North erreichte schnell die höchste Alphabetisierungsrate in Europa, einen Überfluss an Kapital, die größte Handelsflotte in Europa. Die Holländer beherrschten den Handel in der Ostsee, zwischen China und Japan und mit den englischen Kolonien in Nordamerika. Die niederländische Ostindien-Kompanie (VOC) war das erste multinationale Unternehmen, das durch Aktien finanziert wurde, die die erste moderne Börse gründeten. Die Bank von Amsterdam, die erste Zentralbank, wurde 1609 gegründet. Das Goldene Zeitalter der Niederlande wird von Rembrandt, Vermeer, Jacob van Ruisdael und Frans Hals dominiert. Einige bemerkenswerte künstlerische Stile und Tendenzen umfassen den Haarlem Manierismus, den Utrechter Karavagismus, die Schule von Delft, die Leiden fijnschilders und den holländischen Klassizismus. 1672 wird als "Katastrophenjahr" bezeichnet, als die Holländische Republik von England, Frankreich, Münster und Bayern angegriffen wurde. Die Invasionsarmeen besiegten schnell den größten Teil der holländischen Armee und eroberten einen Teil der Republik.

The term "Northern Renaissance" refers to the art development of c.1430-1580 in the Netherlands Low Countries and Germany. The Low Countries, particularly Flanders with cities Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges, were, along with Florence, the most economically advanced region in Europe. As in Florence, urban culture peaked here. The common understanding of the Renaissance places the birth of the Renaissance in Florence, Italy. Rennaisance's ideas migrated to Germany from Italy because of the travels of Albrecht Dϋrer. Northern artists such as Jan van Eyck remained attached to Medieval traditions. In their paintings, Low Countries painters attempted to reproduce space, color, volume, and light as naturalistically as possible. They achieved the perfection of oil paint in the almost impossible representation of things and objects. Rather than draw upon Classical Greek and Roman aesthetics like their Italian counterparts, Northern European Renaissance artists retained a Gothic sensibility of woodblock printing and illuminated manuscripts which clearly distinguished Northern Rennaisance art from Italian. Unlike Italian artists, northern painters were not interested in rediscovering the spirit of ancient Greece. Instead, they sought to exploit the full potential of oil paint, and capture nature exactly as they found it. Unlike their Italian counterparts, who embraced a mathematically calculated linear perspective and constructed a picture from within, Dutch artists used an empirical perspective with precise observation and knowledge of the consistency of light and things. They painted as they saw and came very close to the effect of central perspective. Long before Leonardo, they invented aerial and color perspectives. More, as with real-world human vision, their far-away shapes lose contours, and the intensity of the colors fades to a bluish hue. Robert Campin (c.1378-1444), was noted for works like the Seilern Triptych (1410) and the Merode Altarpiece (1425); Jan van Eyck (1390-1441) was noted for the Ghent Altarpiece (1432) and The Arnolfini Marriage (1434); Jan Eyck's pupil Petrus Christus (c.1410-75), best known for his Portrait of a Young Girl (1470, Gemaldegalerie, Berlin); Roger Van der Weyden (1400-64) noted for his extraordinary realism as in his masterpiece Descent From the Cross (Deposition) (1435), for the Church of Notre Dame du Dehors (now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid); Dieric Bouts (1420-75) for his devotional pictures; Hugo Van Der Goes (1440-82) famous for The Portinari Altarpiece (1475) which influenced the Early Renaissance in Florence; Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516) noted for The Garden of Earthly Delights (1510-15) and other moralizing works; Joachim Patenier (1485-1524) the pioneer landscape painter; and Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525-1569) known for landscape narratives such as The Tower of Babel (1563).