Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca 1525-1569), The Peasant Dance, ca 1567, oil on oak panel, 114 x 164 cm.

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The painting depicts merrymaking peasants during the village saint’s day feast. The main ingredients of gluttony, desire and dispute but also of joy and relaxing vitality are pictured. The couple on the foreground hastily runs to join the dance. Three men at the table near the tavern are quarrelling, one of them in his drunken animation knocking his boozer neighbour in the face. Behind them a kissing couple in the forties are recollecting their early lives. Another boozer tries to tempt the bagpipe player with a jug of beer. Nearby two children are clearly allowed to participate in the happening, the oldest one in traditional clothing similar to that of adult females.

For several details of the painting, see next pictures