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The Gloomy Day
Artist	Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Year	1565
Type	Oil on wood
Dimensions	118 cm × 163 cm (46+1⁄2 in × 64+1⁄8 in)
Location	Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The Gloomy Day (Dutch: De sombere dag) is a panel painting in oils by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1565. It is one in a series of six works, five of which are still extant, that depict different times of the year. The painting is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.

The scene is set around February and March, portrayed by the bleak atmosphere and leafless trees. The paper crown around the boy's head and the eating of waffles are references to the Carnival time prior to Lent. The sky, the ships crashing against the shoreline, and the children preparing themselves in the foreground suggest that harsh weather is coming.

In this painting “The bold contrast of shadow and light, the knowing gradation between the planes, and the admirable harmony of yellows, tans and browns qualify this work as a masterpiece. It exudes an ardent melancholy, a strange quality, at once gentle and powerful, that touches and penetrates the viewer”.

Bruegel is famous for his paintings of scenery and nature. Most of his paintings of the countryside tell a story or have a moral message.

The surviving Months of the Year cycle are:

• The Gloomy Day
• The Harvesters
• The Hay Harvest
• The Hunters in the Snow
• The Return of the Herd
• Spring, 1565, original presumed lost

See also

• List of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

References

1. Michel, Charles, Emile, Victoria (2015). The Brueghel. Parkstone International. ISBN 978-1-78310-763-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. Timeline History Textbook

External links

• "Kunsthistorisches Museum". khm.at. Vienna. Kunsthistorisches Museum. Retrieved April 11, 2022.
• "Image of the painting in extremely high resolution". insidebruegel.net. Vienna. Kunsthistorisches Museum. Retrieved April 11, 2022.

v t e Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Paintings	List of paintings Parable of the Sower (1557) Naval Battle in the Gulf of Naples (1558–1562) The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559) Netherlandish Proverbs (1559) Children's Games (1560) Landscape with the Fall of Icarus The Triumph of Death (c. 1562) The Fall of the Rebel Angels (1562) The Suicide of Saul (1562) Two Monkeys (1562) Dull Gret (1563) Adoration of the Magi in the Snow (1563) The Tower of Babel (1563) Landscape with the Flight into Egypt (1563) Adoration of the Kings (1564) The Death of the Virgin (1564) The Procession to Calvary (1564) Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (1565) The Gloomy Day (1565) The Harvesters (1565) The Hay Harvest (1565) The Return of the Herd (1565) The Wine of Saint Martin's Day (c. 1565–1568) The Hunters in the Snow (1565) Winter Landscape with Ice skaters and Bird trap (1565) Massacre of the Innocents (c. 1565–1567) The Census at Bethlehem (1566) The Sermon of Saint John the Baptist (1566) The Wedding Dance (1566) Conversion of Paul (1567) The Land of Cockaigne (1567) The Peasant Wedding (1567) The Peasant Dance (c. 1567) The Beggars (1568) The Peasant and the Nest Robber (1568) The Blind Leading the Blind (1568) The Magpie on the Gallows (1568) The Misanthrope (1568) The Storm at Sea (c. 1569)
Drawings	The Painter and The Buyer (1565)
Related	Pieter Brueghel the Younger (son) Jan Brueghel the Elder (son) Jan Brueghel the Younger (grandson) Breugel, Netherlands Son en Breugel The Mill and the Cross (2011 film) Bruegel (crater) 9664 Brueghel Bruegel (think tank)

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