Figure 1.---Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting 'Children's games' (1560) is a wonderful composit of all the different types of children play among peasant children at the time. He depicted a wide range of play activities for children and youth at the time. Some are obvious and others we are not so sure about. This is one of several peasant genre scenes. And in addition to the play scenes we see how both peasant children and youth dressed. The girls wore dresses and skirts. The boys wore both long robes and short jackets with hose (something like tights)--both appear to be standard. Most of the children have headwear. We get a good idea about color, incluing blue, brown, cream, and red.

Thanks to the marvelous artists of the Dutch/Flemish Renaissance we have a great deal of information on how the Dutch dressed in the 16th century. here we are talking not only about the modern Dutch, but the Flemish in what is now Belgium. at the time, the Spanish Netherlands included most of what is now the modern Netherlands and Belgium. We suspect that substantially the same clothing trends prevailed in the Waloon (French) areas. And unlike other countries we have a very good idea of clothing trends for a wide spectrum of the population. Quite a number of talented artists painted portraits of the wealthy merchany class, but we also have genre works. Certainly the most important was Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c1525-69). In fact, he became known as 'Peasant Bruegel' becase he devoted so much attention to the peasantry. And not only do we see many peasant impages, his painting 'Children playing' (1560) shows us not only how children and youth dressed, but how they played and diverted themselves at the time. The girls wore dresses and skirts. The boys wore both long robes and short jackets with medieval hose (something like tights)--both appear to be standard. Most of the children have headwear. We get a good idea about color, including blue, brown, cream, and red. Sone of the activities are easy to see such as bowls. In other case we are not really sure what is going on.

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Created: 1:36 AM 11/2/2017
Last updated: 1:36 AM 11/2/2017