HUMN 303N Week 2 Assignment; Essay; Painting Analysis & Reflection - The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elderin (1563)

Painting Analysis & Reflection Angelia Christine GuruleChamberlain University College of Nursing HUMN-303Anna Farrell January 16th The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elderin (1563) Pieter Bruegel was born in 1525 and died in 1569 (Griffin, 2022). Bruegel’s art was made in the aftermath of the reformation, his “visually engrossing paintings show scenes of rural working life, religion, and superstition” (The Art Story, 2018). Bruegel was influenced by the Italian Renaissance style when it came to his landscape paintings. Later in life, he began to paintworks that depicted scenes from ordinary life and could be seen as religious in nature. “The world of Pieter Bruegel was not secular; it was a surreal place infused with religious thought” (Prosperetti, L. et al, 2020). While others at this time, like the Italians and Romans, emphasized the difference between mammals and land, Bruegel was the opposite. He emphasized the similarities and importance of both humans and land to the world as we know it. Although he was influenced partially by the Italian Renaissance style, he put his spin on it and this led others like Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt to continue to contribute to a new, unique Northern Renaissance style (The Art Story, 2018). One of his many works was “The Tower of Babel''. The Tower of Babel, pictured above, by Pieter Bruegel the Elderin was a piece based upon the story of Nimrod. Nimrod was a man of great power whose main goal was to reach the heavens. He and his followers settled in a place called Shinar and made it their home. On this land, they decided to make a tower as a symbol of power and a way to reach God (Griffin, 2022). God did not like this, the people of Shinar were arrogant, and their hearts were not sincere. God decided to make it impossible for the people to communicate, making construction nearly impossible due to the inability to communicate with one another. This caused the people to disperse around the world, and construction came to an end. Schroeder states “The story of the Tower of Babel, explaining the diversity of human languages a