Tiny town

The sense of scale in the work is shown by looking at the Flemish-style port city, which is impressively tiny in comparison to the tower.

Depicting detail

Looking closer at the painting, you can see Bruegel depiction of technical and mechanical details, shown through the building materials on the tower.

Living up high

Bruegel paints the workers’ houses into the stone outer structure, which blends elements of classical houses with Romanesque architecture.

Nature vs. man-made

Bruegel paints the tower blending into the rocky slope, providing a cross-over of nature and man-made materials.

Heroes at work

Pitman shows heroic men and women at work, looking like gods on earth. Their idealized forms seem to link the land to the heavens.

Lumbering on

Virginia Pitman's paintings were designed to celebrate American workers, such as these lumberjacks, and lift the country out of the Great Depression.

Elemental figures

Pitman is careful to show the workers as highly skilled, but also as being elemental, natural humans, in touch with earth, air, and water.