The Mill and the Cross

Pieter Bruegel’s masterpiece ‘The Way To Calvary’ depicts the story of Christ’s Passion set in Flanders under brutal Spanish occupation in the year 1564, the very year Bruegel created his painting. From among more than five hundred figures, the life stories of a dozen characters unfold and intertwine in a panoramic landscape populated by villagers and red-caped horsemen. Among them are Bruegel himself, his friend and art collector Nicholas Jonghelinck and the Virgin Mary. Bruegel is capturing shards of the desperate stories around him on his canvas-in-the-making.