Click to enlarge. There are an estimated 230 children playing 83 different games
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.
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. 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 Jan van Doesborch, mankind is compared to children who are entirely absorbed in their foolish games and concerns.
Categories: Art
Blogging Theology 
I like the comparison of mankind (like children) absorbed in their foolish games and concerns.
What also come through clearly is that children in Bruegels day must have been utterly desperate to entertain themselves. Looks like one girl was so bored that she was poking a pile of manure with a stick……foolish games indeed!!! 🙂
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