Pieter Bruegel the elder, yeah

Bruegel was a Dutch painting guy, hanging around in the mid 1500's. He was apparently a printmaker and painter, though I haven't seen many of his prints, and he is pretty famous.

In case you haven't noticed, the cover of the first Fleet Foxes album is a Bruegel painting. Crazy days.
I've heard that this painting depicts a lot of literal representations of Dutch proverbs and its all round pretty humourous. Even though the proverbs thing is pretty much lost on me, I'm happy just to laugh along anyway.

Things that I enjoy about Bruegel is that he was clearly a very skilled painter, but that he also did not give that much of a shit about perspective or giving things correct proportions. He had other more important things on his mind maybe, like making sweet pictures.

I also get the impression that he was interested in the lives of "everyday" people like you and me, if we were 16th century Flemish crippled people.

Looking at his work makes me feel like maybe he knew something important and was trying to tell me what it is. Like in this picture. It is called Icarus, and you can even see that guy making a bit of a splash in the water down the bottom there, I think. But you wouldn't even notice Icarus if you didn't know to look for him. You'd be too distracted by the beautiful veiws and the busy farmer tilling the land, I think.

Man, I don't know.

Also, I'm pretty sure he liked to party.