Children's Games

Bruegel painted ninety-one different children's games in this single canvas. Most can still be identified. The boy walking on wooden stilts has foot-platforms strapped to the shins with leather cords. Modern stilts add fibreglass and clamps; the basic mechanism is the same. The children's faces are intent, almost adult, as if the play is the work. Now at Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna @kunsthistorischesmuseumvienna