A scene from the market / 1569 / oil on canvas / Halloween Museum

Pieter Aertsen, a Dutch painter, worked in the style of Mannerism. His reputation is for creating great scenes in which inanimate nature and scenes from everyday life are interpreted, and scenes from the Bible are also in the background. He was based in his hometown of Amsterdam but spent most of his career in Antwerp, the center of artistic life in the Netherlands.

His style later influenced Flemish Baroque painting, the lifeless nature of the Netherlands, as well as in Italy. The scenes he portrayed of the petty peasants continued in the works of Peter Bruegel.

A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms / 1551 / Oil on canvas / North Carolina Museum of Art

"A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms" This large painting depicts a peasant shop with lots of meat and other foods. In the background is a picture of the story of fleeing to Egypt from the Bible, where Mary stands by the road and gives alms to a poor man. Thus, although painting at first seems a typical inanimate nature related to food, it actually has a religious and symbolic meaning and embodies pictorial metaphors to draw attention to spiritual life.

Prepared and arranged by: Narges Saheb Ekhtiari