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Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Triumph of Death
1562, Madrid, Prado
Oil on Canvas

Another fantastical representation of death and the confrontation between the viewer and the composition and there own mortality. Consisting of numerous different scenes Bruegel’s painting challenges all walks of life with the ephemeral aspect of their existence. An important visual element in the frescoes is the inclusion of the “transi”, a visual representation of the confrontation of the living and the dead. ¹ The living characters and decaying physical bodies are represented to emphasize that the eternal soul is the most important aspect of salvation and to remind how fleeting life can be.