In a pivotal moment in the development of the arts and the sciences, Pieter Bruegel painted The Blind Leading the Blind (1568), a major work that embodies the transition from the medieval to the humanist mind. In The Blind Leading the Blind, Bruegel ascribed a different treatment to the fi gures and the landscape. I will show how Bruegel applied a white preparation underneath the human fi gures and not beneath the earthy ground surrounding the blind men. In doing so, he physically placed the ...