Pieter Bruegel (1525? -1569) is an artist who lived in Holland and Italy in the 16th century. He was one of the pioneers of Northern Dutch art with his works and became the most important representative and master of genre painting in the 16th century. Describing the scenes of the daily life of his period in a unique artistic style, the artist's works have an archival and documentary quality. Bruegel has portrayed villagers, daily events and children's games. In addition, in Bruegel's works, moral, social and local issues often take part in figurative, landscape and spatial arrangements. The artist, as the person of the age in which he lives, has adopted a new way of thinking and approaching society in his art. This research aimed to examine the rural memory in the genre (daily life) paintings of the Elder Pieter Bruegel, who has an important place in European art and art history. Under this purpose; the world in which Bruegel lives and its works are taken into consideration; in terms of rural memory, artistic fiction, composition, form-expression and content. This research is important in that it focuses on the rural memory context of P. Bruegel and therefore covers a specific research area. Within the scope of the research, the literature research has been done. In addition, a selection was created from the artist's works depicting scenes from rural life. In the context of rural memory in the artist's works, a work-based research, reading, analysis and interpretation method has been adopted in company with certain sources. In this direction, the content of the text was created by making use of local and foreign sources about Bruegel. In the content, first of all, the life story of the artist was mentioned briefly, then the context of the research was touched on, and finally, examples of his works were presented. The research text was concluded in line with the findings and data obtained.

Pieter Bruegel, Genre Painting, Rural Memory, Plastic Arts, Visual Arts.