Even if Bruegel’s subject matter was unconventional, the religious ideals and proverbs driving his paintings were typical of the Northern Renaissance. The Flemish provided a large artistic audience for proverb-filled paintings because proverbs were well known and recognizable as well as entertaining. One of Bruegel’s most famous paintings was Netherlandish Proverbs, painted in 1559. The majority of Bruegel’s paintings have many different actions occurring at once, but this painting, with about 80 proverbs, must have been one of his most symbolically laden paintings.
