The consummate painter of peasant life was no less sophisticated than his 16th-century contemporaries, says Walter S. Gibson in this illustrated biography of Bruegel. A volume in the excellent "World of Art" series, Gibson's book dispels the myth of Bruegel the simpleton artist and replaces it with a portrait of a man who understood the needs of his patrons. With many black-and-white and color reproductions of the paintings.  (NTH41, $14.95)

Renaissance