Peter Bruegel's paintings---a peasant wedding in a barn, hunters in the snow, a rollicking street festival, and many others---have long defined our idea of everyday life in sixteenth- century Europe. They are classic icons of a time and place in much the same way as Norman Rockwell's depictions of twentieth-century America. We know relatively little about Bruegel, but after years of research, novelist Rudy Rucker has built upon the what is known and has created for us the life and world of a true master who never got old. In sixteen chapters, each headed by a reproduction of one of the famous works, Rucker brings Bruegel's painter's progress and his colorful world to vibrant life, doing for Bruegel what the best-selling Girl with a Pearl Earring did for Vermeer. We follow the artist from the winding streets of Antwerp and Brussels to the glowing skies and decaying monuments of Rome and back. He and his friends, the cartographer Ortelius and Williblad Cheroo, an American Indian, are as vivid on the page as the multifarious denizens of Bruegel's unforgettable canvases. Here is a world of conflict, change, and discovery, a world where Carnival battles Lent every day, preserved for us in paint by the engaging genius you will meet in the pages of As Above So Below.

彼得·勃鲁盖尔在今日已被公认为法兰德斯绘画的三大巨匠之一。虽然作品数量只有五十件左右，然而勃鲁盖尔在艺术史上的影响力不容小觑。他是17世纪荷兰绘画的开拓者。勃鲁盖尔借着对事物细节之忠实描绘与怪诞幻想之唐突对比，于画中创作出人世的缩影。其深刻的观察不论是在刻画农民生活的写实作品。抑或表达时代背景的讽刺画作中，都一览无遗。画风古朴而率直，素有“农民画家”的美誉。著名的《冬猎》、《农民婚礼》及《盲人的寓言》等杰作，便充分流露出勃鲁盖尔惯有的多样情节安排和文学寓意；构图紧凑且喜以侧面轮廓线描摹，使得画中事物看似简单、平面，却显出极为有力的效果。本书精选勃鲁盖尔一生作品，并辅以局部呈现的方式，让读者能详尽地欣赏勃鲁盖尔作品的精华。更收录一篇探讨勃鲁盖尔与尼德兰谚语之专文，给读者贴近勃鲁盖尔画中世界的一个新机会。本书为2003年1月第2次印刷。

本书运用优美的语言和精致的图片描绘了世界著名版画艺术家埃舍尔的生平、创作以及他对版画艺术的理解。埃舍尔的许多版画都源于悖论、幻觉和双重意义。自相缠绕的怪圈是他作品中经常出现的一个主题。他努力追求图景的完备而不顾它们的不一致性，或者说让那些不可能同时在场者同时出场。借此他创造了一个颇具魅力的“不可能世界”。埃舍尔对“不可能世界”的营造极其成功，使他在世界各地拥有众多的崇拜者，其中包括很多知名科学家，比如诺贝尔奖得主李政道就非常欣赏埃舍尔的艺术作品。