"The (Great) Tower of Babel"

Bruegel has given remarkable consideration to the colouring of the tower. At the top, the bricks are still bright red, but in the lower levels they have weathered and become lighter in colour.

This subtlety of detail is also visible in the artist’s depiction of the human activity around the enormous tower. Bruegel has painted more than a thousand people. On the left at the foot of the tower men can be seen carrying sacks filled with lime, used for making mortar, to the top of the tower, hence the white strip going up the tower. To the left of it is a red strip, which marks the passage by which bricks were hoisted up the tower.

A procession can be seen on the third level of the tower, passing by an arch in the form of a church window. Below the procession, knights on horseback are climbing the tower. There is also a great multitude of small human figures in the harbor beneath the tower.