“Children’s Games” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

“Children’s Games” by Pieter Bruegel, the Elder depicts children, who range in age from toddlers to adolescents, who, in some cases, look like miniature adults, playing games.

The games include roll hoops, walk on stilts, spin hoops, ride hobby-horses, mock stage tournaments, play leap-frog and blind man’s bluff, do handstands and play with toys.

The children have also taken over the sizeable civic building that dominates the square. Even in the top left-hand corner, children are bathing in the river and playing on its banks.

Bruegel’s intention for this work was not just to compile an illustrated collection of children’s games. His moral message was that for God, children’s games have as much significance as the activities of their parents.

This moral idea was influenced by a contemporary poem published in Antwerp in 1530 in which humanity is compared to children who are entirely absorbed in their games and concerns.

Pieter Bruegel, the Elder

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525 – 1569) was the most significant Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting artist. He is a painter known for his landscapes and peasant scenes.

He significantly influenced the Dutch Golden Age painting with his innovative choices of the subject matter. He was one of the first generation of artists to grow up when religious subjects had ceased to be the dominant subject matter of painting.

All his most famous paintings come from the decade before his early death when he was in his early forties and at the height of his artistic powers.

He dropped the ‘h’ from his name and signed his paintings as Bruegel, and he is sometimes referred to as “Peasant Bruegel” to distinguish him from the many later painters in his family, including his son Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564-1638).

Children’s Games in the Painting

Walk on stilts

Leap-frog Vaulting

Mock tournaments

Hobby-horse Riding

Playing the flute and the drum

Roll hoops

Shouting into a barrel from a hole

Riding the barrel

Hat throwing

Playing with dolls

Playing ‘Holy Mass’ with liturgical objects

Water gun, shooting water at a bird

Wearing Masks

Swing from a hanging seat

Climbing a fence

Handstands

Bending the body to contorted positions

Blind Man’s Bluff

Playing with birds

Making hats with twigs

Basket weaving

Blowing bubbles

Somersault Flipping

Fence riding

Mock wedding

Passing through kicking legs – running the gauntlet

A flying spinneret made of nutshells

Toy animals

Ball made with an inflated animals’ bladder

Knucklebones Game

Mock baptismal

A hand game – similar to rock, paper, scissors

A decorated paper-mâché container

Playing with small discs and a pot

Building a well

Pulling hair

Catching insects

Playing marbles

Pitch and toss

Twirling a hat on a stick

Riding piggyback

Singing door-to-door

Bonfire

Riding a broom

Making a procession

Who’s got the ball

Pushing a wall

Hide-and-seek

Swimming

Diving Jumping into water

Playing with sand

Rattles

Wrestling

Bowling

High stilts

Pole vaulting

Balancing a stick on a finger

Pirouetting skirts

Spinning tops

Flying a ribbon on a stick

Climbing a tree

Children’s Games

Title: Children’s Games
Artist: Pieter Brueghel the Elder
Year: 1560
Medium: Oil on Wood
Dimensions: Height: 1,180 mm (46.45 ″); Width: 1,610 mm (63.38 ″)
Museum: Kunsthistorisches Museum

Pieter Bruegel, the Elder

Name: Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Birth: 1525-1530 – Breda, Duchy of Brabant, Habsburg Netherlands
Died: 1569 (aged 39 – 44) – Brussels, Duchy of Brabant, Habsburg Netherlands
Movement: Dutch and Flemish Renaissance
Notable Works:
- Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
- The Tower of Babel
- Massacre of the Innocents
- The Triumph of Death
- The Harvesters
- Children’s Games
- The Hunters in the Snow
- Netherlandish Proverbs
- The Wedding Dance