Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting in the context of "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"

The Tower of Babel was the subject of two surviving paintings and one lost painting by Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The earliest of the three, a miniature painted on ivory, was completed in 1552–1553 while Bruegel was in Rome, and is now lost. The two surviving works are oil paintings on wood panels, sometimes distinguished by the prefix "Great" and "Little" and by their present location: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien in Vienna and the latter in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. The Tower of Babel in Vienna is dated 1563, while the version in Rotterdam is undated but widely believed to have been painted sometime after.

The paintings depict the construction of the Tower of Babel, which, according to the Book of Genesis in the Bible, was built by a unified, monolingual humanity as a mark of their achievement and to prevent their dispersion: "Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'" God punishes the builders for their vanity by "confusing their speech" into different languages so that they could no longer communicate; however, in both paintings, Bruegel focuses on the construction of the tower rather than the biblical story as a whole.

Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder (/ˈbrɔɪɡəl/ BROY-gəl, US also /ˈbruːɡəl/ BROO-gəl; Dutch: [ˈpitər ˈbrøːɣəl] ; c. 1525–1530 – 9 September 1569) was among the most significant artists of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genre painting); he was a pioneer in presenting both types of subject as large paintings.

He was a formative influence on Dutch Golden Age painting and later painting in general in his innovative choices of subject matter, as one of the first generation of artists to grow up when religious subjects had ceased to be the natural subject matter of painting. He also painted no portraits, the other mainstay of Netherlandish art. After his training and travels to Italy, he returned in 1555 to settle in Antwerp, where he worked mainly as a prolific designer of prints for the leading publisher of the day. At the end of the 1550s, he made painting his main medium, and all his famous paintings come from the following period of little more than a decade before his early death in 1569, when he was probably in his early forties.

Joachim Patinir, also called Patenier (c. 1480 – 5 October 1524), was a Flemish Renaissance painter of history and landscape subjects. He was Flemish, from the area of modern Wallonia, but worked in Antwerp, then the centre of the art market in the Low Countries. Patinir was a pioneer of landscape as an independent genre and he was the first Flemish painter to regard himself primarily as a landscape painter. He effectively invented the world landscape, a distinct style of panoramic northern Renaissance landscapes which is Patinir's important contribution to Western art. His work marks an important stage in the development of the representation of perspective in landscape painting.

Patinir was a friend of not only Dürer, but also of the leading Antwerp painter Quentin Metsys, with whom he often collaborated. The Temptation of St Anthony (Prado) was executed in collaboration with Metsys, who added the figures to Patinir's landscape. His career was nearly contemporary with that of Albrecht Altdorfer, the other major pioneer of paintings dominated by the landscape, who worked in a very different style. He may have been the uncle of Herri met de Bles, but there is not a single piece of contemporary evidence to support it. De Bles was probably only 14(?) when Patinir died, and his style was quite different, although both came from Dinant. The latter is the only fact connecting the two artists at the moment.

Flemish painting flourished from the early 15th century until the 17th century, gradually becoming distinct from the painting of the rest of the Low Countries, especially the modern Netherlands. In the early period, up to about 1520, the painting of the whole area is (especially in the Anglophone world) typically considered as a whole, as Early Netherlandish painting. This was dominated by the Flemish south, but painters from the north were also important. Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, of which Antwerp became the centre, covers the period up to about 1580 or later, by the end of which the north and south Netherlands had become politically separated. Flemish Baroque painting was especially important in the first half of the 17th century, dominated by Rubens.

In theory the term does not refer to modern Flanders but to the County of Flanders and neighbouring areas of the Low Countries such as the Tournaisis and Duchy of Brabant. However this distinction, well understood in modern Belgium, has always been disregarded by most foreign observers and writers. Flanders delivered the leading painters in Northern Europe and attracted many promising young painters from other countries. These painters were invited to work at foreign courts and had a Europe-wide influence. Since the end of the Napoleonic era, Flemish painters have again been contributing to a reputation that had been set by the Old Masters.

Dutch art describes the history of visual arts in the Netherlands, after the United Provinces separated from Flanders. Earlier painting in the area is covered in Early Netherlandish painting and Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting.

Dutch Golden Age painting, spanning from about 1620 to 1680, was a distinct style and movement that evolved out of the Flemish Baroque tradition. It was a period of great artistic achievement in the Netherlands. There was a healthy artistic climate in Dutch cities during the seventeenth century. For example, between 1605 and 1635, over 100,000 paintings were produced in Haarlem. At that time, art ownership in the city was 25%, a record high. After the end of the Golden Age, production of paintings remained high, but ceased to influence the rest of Europe as strongly.

Jan Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Elder (/ˈbrɔɪɡəl/ BROY-gəl, US also /ˈbruːɡəl/ BROO-gəl; Dutch: [ˈjɑm ˈbrøːɣəl] ; 1568 – 13 January 1625) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. He was the younger son of the eminent Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. A close friend and frequent collaborator with Peter Paul Rubens, the two artists were the leading Flemish painters in the Flemish Baroque painting of the first three decades of the 17th century.

Brueghel worked in many genres including history paintings, flower still lifes, allegorical and mythological scenes, landscapes and seascapes, hunting pieces, village scenes, battle scenes and scenes of hellfire and the underworld. He was an important innovator who invented new types of paintings such as flower garland paintings, paradise landscapes, and gallery paintings in the first quarter of the 17th century. However, he generally avoided painting large figures, as in portraits, though he often collaborated with other painters who did these, while he did the landscape backgrounds, and sometimes the clothes.

The Painter and The Buyer is a 1565 pen-and-ink on brown paper drawing by the Netherlandish Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The alternative title is The Artist and The Connoisseur. The painter is thought to be a self-portrait of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.