It is also believed The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel the Elder was influenced by the Italian rendition of The Triumph of Death (c. 1440-1445), which is a fresco from the Palazzo Sclafani in Palermo, Italy.
The Triumph of Death painting depicts a vast, almost bird’s eye view, an apocalyptic landscape where there are burning fires, black plumes of smoke, bones, and bodies, and a natural environment overturned into chaos.
The Triumph of Death is described as an overall “reddish-brown”, which adds to the intensity of what is taking place in the composition as if it is a hellish landscape.
The artist utilized different types of brushwork to create different textures, such as the more scumbled brushwork to indicate the smoke and the more thinned and long brushstrokes to indicate the areas of water.
There is a dominance of diagonal lines in The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, which creates movement and rhythm and heightens the dramatic effect of the subject matter.
The entire composition of The Triumph of Death painting comes alive through the arrangement of different types of lines, which become multitudes of shapes and forms.