The Triumph of Death

The Triumph of Death is an

The Triumph of Death
oil panel painting by Pieter
Bruegel the Elder painted c.
1562.[1] It has been in the Museo
del Prado in Madrid since
1827.[2]

Description
The painting shows a panorama
of an army of skeletons wreaking
havoc across a blackened,
desolate landscape. Fires burn in
the distance, and the sea is
littered with shipwrecks.[3]

A few leafless trees stud hills Artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder
otherwise bare of vegetation. Year c. 1562
Fish lie rotting on the shores of a
Medium oil on panel
corpse-choked pond. Art
historian James Snyder Dimensions 117 cm × 162 cm (46 in × 63.8 in)
emphasizes the "scorched, Location Museo del Prado, Madrid
barren earth, devoid of any life
as far as the eye can see."[1]

In this setting, legions of skeletons advance on the living, who either flee in terror or try in
vain to fight back. In the foreground, skeletons haul a wagon full of skulls. In the upper
left corner, others ring the bell that signifies the death knell of the world. People are
herded into a coffin-shaped trap decorated with crosses, while skeletons on horseback kill
people with a scythe. This is one of four horses ridden by skeletons that are depicted in
the painting, probably alluding to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The painting
depicts people of different social backgrounds – from peasants and soldiers to nobles as
well as a king and a cardinal – being taken by death indiscriminately.[4]

A skeleton parodies human happiness by playing a hurdy-gurdy, while the wheels of his
cart crush a man as if his life is of no importance. A woman has fallen in the path of the
death cart. She has a slender thread which is about to be cut by the scissors in her other
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hand—Bruegel's interpretation of Atropos. Nearby, another woman in the path of the cart
holds in her hand a spindle and distaff, classical symbols of the fragility of human life—
another Bruegel interpretation of Clotho and Lachesis.

A starving dog nibbles at the face of a dead

child lying still within its dead mother's
embrace. Just beside her, a cardinal is
helped towards his fate by a skeleton who
mockingly wears the red hat, while a dying
king's barrels of gold and silver coins are
looted by yet another skeleton, oblivious to
the fact that a skeleton is warning him
with an empty hourglass that his life is
about to literally run out of time. The
foolish and miserly monarch's last
thoughts still compel him to reach out for
his useless and vain wealth, seeming
The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
unaware of the need for repentance. In the 1562
centre, an awakening religious pilgrim has
his throat cut by a robber-skeleton for his
money purse. Above the murder, skeleton-
fishermen catch people in a net.

In the bottom right-hand corner, a dinner

has been broken up and the diners are
putting up a futile resistance. They have
drawn their swords in order to fight the
skeletons dressed in winding-sheets. No
less hopelessly, the court jester takes
refuge beneath the dinner table. The
backgammon board and the playing cards
have been scattered, while a skeleton
thinly disguised with a mask (possibly the Jan Brueghel's 1597 version of The Triumph of
face of a corpse) empties away the wine Death
flasks. Of the menu of the interrupted
meal, all that can be seen are a few pallid
rolls of bread and an appetiser apparently consisting of a pared human skull. Above the
table are two women. The one on the left struggles in vain while being embraced by a
skeleton, in a hideous parody of after-dinner amorousness. The woman on the right is
horrified with the realisation of mortality when a skeleton in a hooded robe mockingly
seems to bring another dish, also consisting of human bones, to the table.[5]

In the bottom right-hand corner, a musician plays a lute while his lady sings. Both are
oblivious to the fact that, behind both of them, the skeleton that plays along is grimly
aware that the couple can not escape their inevitable doom. A cross sits in the centre of
the painting. The painting shows aspects of everyday life in the mid-sixteenth century,
when the risk of plague was very severe. Clothes are clearly depicted, as are pastimes such
as playing cards and backgammon. It shows objects such as musical instruments, an early
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mechanical clock, scenes including a
funeral service, and various methods of
execution, including the breaking wheel,
the gallows, burning at the stake, and the
headsman about to behead a victim who
has just taken wine and communion. In
one scene, a human is the prey of a
skeleton-hunter and his dogs.

In another scene at the left, skeletons drag

victims down to be drowned in a pond. A
man with a grinding stone around his neck
is about to be thrown into the pond by the
1628 version of The Triumph of Death
skeletons—an echoing of Matthew 18.6 (ht
tps://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se
arch=Matthew+18:6) and Luke 17.2 (https://www.biblica.com/bible/?osis=niv:Luke.16:2
8–30:28). On the bridge just above at the right, a skeleton is about to strike a prostrate
victim with a Falchion.

Bruegel combines two distinct visual traditions within the panel. These represent both the
native tradition of Northern woodcuts of the Dance of Death, and the Italian conception
of the Triumph of Death. Classic examples of his frescoes can now be seen in the Palazzo
Sclafani in Palermo and in the Camposanto Monumentale at Pisa.[6]

Popular culture
Heavy metal band Black Sabbath released a compilation album titles Black Sabbath
Greatest Hits in 1977 which used the painting as the front and back covers.[7]

In Underworld, a 1996 novel by Don Delillo, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover becomes
utterly intrigued by the painting after and eventually obtains a print of it.

The painting plays a pivotal role in The Rich Man's House, 2019, the final novel by
Australian writer Andrew McGahan, with its theme of inevitable mortality. The rich man
of the title (called Richman) has acquired the painting from the Museo del Prado and it
hangs in pride of place in his mountaintop house.[8]

Described in detail as being displayed as a mural under 'The Theatre des Vampires' in
Anne Rice's Novel "Interview With The Vampire", Pg. 225. Copyright 1976 Anne O'Brien
Rice. Published in U.S. by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House L.L.C., in 1976.

See also
100 Great Paintings
The Chariot of Death, painting by Théophile Schuler
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Notes
1. Snyder, James (1985). Northern Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, the Graphic
Arts from 1350 to 1575. New York: Harry N. Abrams. p. 486. ISBN 0-8109-1081-0.
2. Pallucchini, Anna; Ragghianti, Carlo Ludovico; Collobi, Licia Ragghianti (1968).
Prado, Madrid (https://archive.org/details/pradomadrid00pall). Great Museums of the
World. New York: Newsweek. p. 134 (https://archive.org/details/pradomadrid00pall/pa
ge/134).
3. According to the Italian Wikipedia the background of a tower "Particular of the triumph
of the death of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (the Prado, Madrid), in which the profile of
(Fortification of Reggio Calabria) and the Tower of Pentimele is recognized in the
background, the Flemish painter was in Reggio in the sixteenth century and in this
work refers to his notes of voyage in which It describes the attack of the Pirates of
Dragut on the beach of the quarter of arches."
4. Woodward, Richard B. (February 14, 2009). "Death Takes No Holiday" (https://www.w
sj.com/articles/SB123456346044885861). The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved
December 22, 2011.
5. G. Gluck, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, London (1958), s.v. "Triumph of Death". See also
Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen, Bruegel: The Complete Paintings. aka Pieter Bruegel
the Elder: peasants, fools and demons, Taschen (2004).
6. P. Thon, "Bruegel's Triumph of Death Reconsidered", Renaissance Quarterly Vol. 21,
No. 3, Autumn, 1968.
7. "BLACK SABBATH - Greatest Hits compilation album released in 1977 on the NEMS
Record Label. The illustration on the album front cover is El Triunfo de la Muerte by
Pieter Bruegel, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal Vinyl Album Gallery #vinylrecords" (https://vi
nyl-records.nl/black-sabbath/black-sabbath-greatest-hits-nems-white-label-vinyl-lp-alb
um.html). vinyl-records.nl. Retrieved 2023-03-08.
8. McGahan, Andrew (2019). The Rich Man's House. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 978
1 76052 982 6.

References
This article  incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:  Chisholm,
Hugh, ed. (1911). "Breughel, Pieter". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th  ed.). Cambridge
University Press.

Further reading
Friedländer, M.J., Early Netherlandish Painting. Volume XIV: Pieter Bruegel, (Engl.
transl.) Leyden (1976).
Gibson, W.S. (1977). Bruegel (https://archive.org/details/bruegel0000unse). London.
Grossman, F. (1973). Pieter Bruegel: Complete Edition of the Paintings (3rd ed.).
London.
Stechow, W. (1969). Pieter Bruegel. New York.
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External links
www.Pieter-Bruegel-The-Elder.org (http://www.pieter-bruegel-the-elder.org) 99 works
by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Creativity Brueghel laid the foundation of the Netherlands School (http://www.art-draw
ing.ru/biographies/brief-biographies/199-bruegel-peter)

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