Intensities and multitudes

Pieter Bruegel
The Fall of the Rebel Angels
1562

"In Bruegel's rendering, the violence is expressed not in the bitter nature of the battle--indeed St Michael and his sparse troops do not appear particularly threatened by the demons--but by the intensity of the fall--infernal and endless--of this crawling, hideous multitude that invades the entire surface of the picture, in a remarkable unity of action which increases its impact."