The Fall of the Rebel Angels
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Pieter Bruegel was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker from Brabant, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes; he was a pioneer in making both types of subject the focus in large paintings.
Max Resolution:1360×982 PX
Title:The Fall of the Rebel Angels
Original Title:De val van de opstandige engelen
Artists:Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Date:1562
Style:Northern Renaissance
Genre:religious painting
Medium:oil,panel
Location:Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium
Dimensions:117×162 cm
Copyright:Public domain
The Fall of the Rebel Angels is an oil-on-panel by the Netherlandish Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1562. It is currently held and exhibited at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.
Painted in 1562, Bruegel's depiction of this subject is taken from a passage from the Book of Revelation (12, 2-9) and reveals the artist's profound debt to Hieronymous Bosch, especially in the grotesque figures of the fallen angels, shown as half-human, half-animal monsters. Together with Dulle Griet and The Triumph of Death, which have similar dimensions, it was probably painted for the same collector and destined to become part of a series.
The composition with a central figure placed among many smaller figures was favoured by Bruegel at this time, not only in other paintings such as Dulle Griet, but also in the series of engravings of the Vices and the Virtues which he had just completed for the Antwerp publisher Hieronymous Cock. The archangel Michael and his angels are shown by Bruegel in the act of driving the rebel angels from Heaven. Pride was the sin which caused the fall of Lucifer and his companions, and the conflict of good and evil, vice and virtue, is a theme which recurs constantly in Bruegel's work.
The painting is used in the music video for the song “Blood Sweat and Tears” by South Korean boyband BTS.
The painting, along with Heironymous Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, is alluded to in the song "Painters of the Tempest, Part Two: Triptych Lux" by Australian progressive metal band Ne Obliviscaris.
Painted in 1562, Bruegel's depiction of this subject is taken from a passage from the Book of Revelation (12, 2-9) and reveals the artist's profound debt to Hieronymous Bosch, especially in the grotesque figures of the fallen angels, shown as half-human, half-animal monsters. Together with Dulle Griet and The Triumph of Death, which have similar dimensions, it was probably painted for the same collector and destined to become part of a series.
The composition with a central figure placed among many smaller figures was favoured by Bruegel at this time, not only in other paintings such as Dulle Griet, but also in the series of engravings of the Vices and the Virtues which he had just completed for the Antwerp publisher Hieronymous Cock. The archangel Michael and his angels are shown by Bruegel in the act of driving the rebel angels from Heaven. Pride was the sin which caused the fall of Lucifer and his companions, and the conflict of good and evil, vice and virtue, is a theme which recurs constantly in Bruegel's work.
The painting is used in the music video for the song “Blood Sweat and Tears” by South Korean boyband BTS.
The painting, along with Heironymous Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, is alluded to in the song "Painters of the Tempest, Part Two: Triptych Lux" by Australian progressive metal band Ne Obliviscaris.