Brueghel was born into a famous dynasty of artists and, together with Rubens, he was generally regarded as the leading painter in Antwerp.
Cosmopolitan and well-travelled, he was a key figure in the development of the traditional Flemish landscape, refining an approach originally conceived by Joachim Patinir and later shaped by the work of Gillis van Coninxloo III. The Garden of Eden, illustrating the Biblical account of Paradise, is among the earliest of his countless treatments of this theme, and a superb example of the best Flemish Baroque landscape painting. The evident influence of contemporary painters such as Roelandt Savery and Rubens is hardly surprising, particularly given his close relationship with the latter.

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Emotions through art

This artwork is part of a study we conducted to analyze people's emotional responses when observing 125 pieces from the museum.

Joy: 20.7%
Disgust: 10.19%
Contempt: 0.47%
Anger: 21.52%
Fear: 19.5%
Surprise: 19.14%
Sadness: 8.48%
View the full study