#27 From Netherlands to Tagumbao: How a famous Dutch landscape painting helped me reminisce the village where I grew up
The Harvesters (ca. 1565) by Pieter Bruegel | Oil on wood | 45 7/8 x 62 7/8 in. You can examine the artwork here . Pieter Bruegel the Elder's (ca. 1525-1569) work above depicted one hot summer in a Dutch countryside. It was part of his original six paintings, but five survived, showing the different seasons of the year. The one above is currently displayed at the Met Museum in New York City, while the other four are exhibited in Vienna, Austria, and Prague, Czech Republic. It is interesting that as I examined the details of this Dutch masterpiece, it brought memories of the barrio (village) where I grew up in the 1980s. It is fascinating despite significant differences between the year (the 1500s versus the 1980s) and place (the Netherlands versus the Philippines), the subjects in the painting and my experiences shared similarities. As a result, those similarities triggered the memories of the village I grew fond of....