Children's Games (Bruegel)

Children's Games

Artist	Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Year	1560
Type	Oil on panel
Dimensions	118 cm × 161 cm (46 in × 63 in)
Location	Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Children's Games is an oil-on-panel by Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1560. It is currently held and exhibited at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Description

This painting, mentioned for the first time by Karel van Mander in 1604, was acquired in 1594 by Archduke Ernest of Austria. It has been suggested that it was the first in a projected series of paintings representing the Ages of Man, in which Children's Games would have stood for Youth. If that was Bruegel's intention, it is unlikely that the series progressed beyond this painting, for there are no contemporary or subsequent mentions of related pictures.

The children, who range in age from toddlers to adolescents, roll hoops, walk on stilts, spin hoops, ride hobby-horses, stage mock tournaments, play leap-frog and blind man's bluff, perform handstands, inflate pigs' bladders and play with dolls and other toys.^{See details below} They have also taken over the large building that dominates the square: it may be a town hall or some other important civic building, in this way emphasizing the moral that the adults who direct civic affairs are as children in the sight of God. This crowded scene is to some extent relieved by the landscape in the top left-hand corner; but even here children are bathing in the river and playing on its banks.

The artist's intention for this work is more serious than simply to compile an illustrated encyclopaedia of children's games, though some eighty particular games have been identified.^{See details below} Bruegel shows the children absorbed in their games with the seriousness displayed by adults in their apparently more important pursuits. His moral is that in the mind of God children's games possess as much significance as the activities of their parents. This idea was a familiar one in contemporary literature: in an anonymous Flemish poem published in Antwerp in 1530 by nl, mankind is compared to children who are entirely absorbed in their foolish games and concerns.

The games

Starting from bottom left, the games may be identified as follows:

Number Image Game Notes 01 100px Playing with dolls 02 100px Playing 'Holy Mass' Small liturgical objects used at Mass and Liturgies 03 100px Water gun and owl on support Shooting water at a bird 04 100px Wearing masks Wearing disguises for fun 05 100px Swing The classic hanging seat 06 100px Climbing a fence A popular pastime with neighbour's fences 07 100px Handstand There are many variations of handstands, but all that matters is balance 08 100px Play the "knot" Bending the body to contorted positions 09 100px Somersault Flipping and rolling forwards, backwards, or sideways 10 100px Fence riding Again, a fence game 11 100px Mock wedding It is exactly at the diagonal centre of the panel. Perhaps an irony of the holy sacrament, or a reference to the main event that allows conception of children. Mock child weddings have been common folk tradition many places in Europe, and were often celebrated at Midsummer. 12 100px Passing through kicking legs - running the gauntlet Painful but dynamic 13 100px Blind Man's Bluff Blind fortune 14 100px Playing with birds Ever popular 14b 100px Making hats with twigs Basket weaving 15 100px Soap bubbles Still a popular pastime, Bruegel shows children blowing bubbles with clay pipes and verifies soap bubbles being used as entertainment for at least 400 years 16 100px Shell bobbin A flying spinneret made of nut shells 17 The "Toton" Forerunner of the roulette and dice games 17b 100px Toy animal with leash A stone dog of sorts 18 100px Knucklebones Game of very ancient origin, played with five small objects, originally the "knucklebones" (actually the astragalus: a bone in the ankle, or hock) of a sheep, which are thrown up and caught in various ways 19 100px Mock baptismal Re-enacting the procession of adults carrying home a baby just baptized. The blue hood symbolises deception ("hooding the husband" meant to cuckold him, as shown in Bruegel's Netherlandish Proverbs). 20 100px Morra A hand game - similar to rock, paper, scissors - that dates back thousands of years to ancient Roman and Greek times 21 100px Piñata A papier-mâché or other type of container that is decorated, filled with toys and or candy and then broken, usually as part of a ceremony or celebration 22 100px Walk on stilts Walking poles equipped with steps for the feet to stand on, they can be short (like here) or long (see below) 23 Play leapfrog Vaulting over each other's stooped backs 24 100px Mock tournaments Competitions of various kind 25 100px The "Pope's seat" Holding the child by gripping hands 26 100px Hobby-horse Riding a wooden hobby horse made of a straight stick with a small horse's head 27 100px Stirring excrements with a stick Not a healthy game 28 100px Playing the flute and the drum Playing simple music with basic instruments, always popular with kids 29 100px The simple roll hoop Children and adults around the world have played with hoops, twirling, rolling and throwing them throughout history 30 100px Shouting into a barrel from a hole The many uses of a barrel 31 100px The hoop with bells A variation of rolling the hoop 32 100px Riding the barrel With barrel vaulting, another popular play 33 100px Hat throwing Throw them through a child's open legs, or see who throws farthest 34 100px Raisinbread man A man-shaped loaf of bread, most likely some sort of Dutch duivekater, offered during wakes or at Christmas 35 100px The penalty of "bumbouncing" Bouncing someone's buttocks on planks

Number Image Game Notes 36 100px Ball made with an inflated pig's bladder Inflating a pig's bladder to create a balloon 37 100px How many goat horns? The child must guess with how many fingers he was slapped by the other riding him 38 100px To play shop On the wooden plank below the funnel Bruegel inscribed "BRUEGEL 1560" Red pigment was made from scraping bricks and was most famous from Antwerp. 39 100px Playing Tiddlywinks Played with small discs called "winks", a pot, and a collection of squidgers. The children use a "squidger" (a disk) to propel a wink into flight by pressing down on a wink, thereby flicking it into the air: the objective of the game is to score points by sending one's own winks into the pot 39b 100px Playing Mumblety-peg An old outdoor game played by children using pocketknives 40 100px Building (a well) Like sandcastles on a beach, building is ever popular 41 100px Pulling hair A game or a fight? 42 100px Catching insects with a net Not only butterflies 43 100px Playing the scourge Not a safe game 44 100px Playing marbles Ancient and still going strong nowadays 45 100px Pitch and toss The players each take a coin and take turns tossing them towards the wall: the coin the closest to the wall wins 45b 100px Twirling a hat on a stick Clowns do it regularly 46 100px Making a procession Popular among children and adults, in diverse applications 47 100px Playing the porter or goalkeeper? 48 100px Who's got the ball? Hiding the ball and guessing who has it 49 100px Riding piggyback Still going strong, riding on someone's shoulders 50 100px Singing door-to-door Especially now at Christmas, with carols 51 100px Bonfire Lighting a fire, a dangerous but ever-practiced activity 52 100px Riding a broom A variation of hobby-horse, but with many players 53 100px Pushing a wall good for exercising muscles 54 100px Hide-and-seek Or "hide and go seek", a game in which a number of players conceal themselves in the environment, to be found by one or more seekers 55 100px The "devil's tail" or the "snake" Role play as a street game 56 100px Grappling A basic form of wrestling 57 100px The "devil chained" Role play as a street game 58 100px Run, jump on a cellar's door Noisy and unsafe 59 100px Bowling Players attempt to score points by rolling a ball along a flat surface, either into pins or to get close to a target ball 60 100px The token Running and handing off the baton to the next runner 61 100px Throwing walnuts Perhaps a variation of bowling or bocce, hitting an assembled cluster of nuts 62 100px High stilts Walking on long poles 63 100px Pole vaulting Exercising on a horizontally fixed bar 64 100px Balancing a stick on a finger A clownish game of balance 65 100px Put up a show Enacting a play 66 100px Spinning tops Using toys that can be spun on an axis, balancing on a point 67 100px The trolleys Baskets moving on a line 68 100px Flying a ribbon on a stick Letting a piece of cloth fly in the wind from a stick 69 100px Whom shall I choose? A girl selects her "baby" from a group of friends under a blanket 70 100px Urinating Technically, not quite a game but practiced often 71 100px Bocce In teams, throwing the bocce balls closest to the jack ball 72 100px Pirouetting skirts Swirling the girls' skirts round and round 73 100px Climbing a tree 74 100px Swimming A healthy recreational exercise, enjoying a full-body workout 75 100px Diving Jumping or falling into water is always lots of fun for children 76 100px Floating with an inflated pig's bladder A sheep's bladder was also used, to float on top of it or to play water games 77 100px "Dethroning the King" Role play 78 100px Playing with sand Building castles and digging holes 79 100px Coil tournament A fight of knights 80 100px Rattles Noisy musical game

External links

• Children's Games at the KHM (German)
• Bosch Bruegel Society
• 99 works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
• Creative Bruegel laid the foundation of the Netherlands School (Russian)
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