Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Known for: The Hunters in the Snow (1565); Flemish peasant painting

Pieter Bruegel the Elder produced approximately 45 paintings across a career of less than two decades, depicting Flemish peasant life and biblical scenes with a panoramic, aerial perspective and a detail and wit that have no real predecessor in Northern European painting. The Hunters in the Snow (1565) and Children's Games (1560) remain among the most recognizable paintings in Western art. He is the patriarch of a dynasty of painters that continued for three generations.