The Return of the Herd Pieter Brueghel The Elder (1525-1569)

Description of Peter Brueghel’s painting The Return of the Herd

The philosophy of ancient Greece has always maintained that our universe is a very complex yet beautiful structure, where every living and non-living object has been given its function.

For example, a horse helps to carry and haul, a tank must plow, a dog must guard a home and go hunting. As for man, his purpose is to look, and with his gaze he must illuminate the world.

Painter Peter Bruegel was fond of Greek philosophy, so many philosophical ideas he embodied in his own works. In them, it is as if such an abstract and invented cosmos comes to life, through the images of nature, plants and animals. For example, his famous "Return of the Herd".

All living things the artist captured in the same color tone - trees, shepherds and cows. On the one hand people are responsible for their herd, but on the other hand they are also part of nature, which must fulfill its own functions.

"The Return of the Herd" is one of the works of the cycle of the seasons. Only five works of fiction from the cycle have survived. The painting is dedicated to the month of November. The shepherds in the composition represent all living things, displaying movement. All lines and images converge in the shepherds hurrying to get home before dark.

In his past creations, Bruegel also tried to find images that could combine the beginning of life, this kind of movement, harmony in the relationship of the universe and man. Therefore, at the heart of his works, he laid the work and the work of man. The depiction of the world in the artist’s paintings acquired the features and details of his beloved homeland.

The meaning or function of human existence is in labor, his work for the benefit of nature - this is what Bruegel tried to express in his works and works.