Image of the Week 017

In this oil painting of the Tower of Babel—one of three such works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder—we see the building's construction. The structure was believed to be filled with magic and symbolic powers; its name meant "God's door." Its extraordinary height was meant to be a link between the divine, heavenly dimensions above and the human, earthly one below. At the top of the tower, astrologers and magicians looked for astral signs and channeled to earth the spiritual energies of the stars. Each floor of the tower corresponded to a planetary sphere or zodiacal sign.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Tower of Babel, 1563.