Every year hundreds of students from all over the world come to study in Utrecht. On the occasion of the 375th anniversary of the founding of Utrecht University, foreign students and alumni were invited to reflect on Dutch culture as they had experienced it in their university years there. This book collects the best of the essays they wrote; the result is a unique and fascinating contribution to the study of Dutch culture. These essays offer not only an intimate portrait of the students’ experiences, but also a fresh perspective on the remarkable, frustrating, and fascinating features of Dutch culture.

A fresh account of the life, ideas, and art of the beloved Northern Renaissance master.

In sixteenth-century Northern Europe, during a time of increasing religious and political conflict, Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel explored how people perceived human nature. Bruegel turned his critical eye and peerless paintbrush to mankind’s labors and pleasures, its foibles and rituals of daily life, portraying landscapes, peasant life, and biblical scenes in startling detail. Much like the great humanist scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam, Bruegel questioned how well we really know ourselves and also how we know, or visually read, others. His work often represented mankind’s ignorance and insignificance, emphasizing the futility of ambition and the absurdity of pride.

This superbly illustrated volume examines how Bruegel’s art and ideas enabled people to ponder what it meant to be human. Published to coincide with the four-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of Bruegel’s death, it will appeal to all those interested in art and philosophy, the Renaissance, and Flemish painting.