Confusion of Tongues: The Construction of the Tower of Babel

1 And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another: ‘Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
4 And they said: ‘Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded
6 And the LORD said: ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do; and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do.
7 Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

 

The interpretation of the Genesis 11-1:9 narrative by generations of artists, notably from the Flemish school

Via: But Does it Float?, Wikipedia and Art and the Bible

 

German Late Medieval (c. 1370s) – Depiction of the construction of the tower.

Master of the Munich Golden Legend ca. 1400 – 1460 – The Tower of Babel— c. 1415-1430

Hanging Gardens of Babylon (16th century), by Martin Heemskerck (with the Tower of Babel in the background)

Athanasius Kircher (XVII Century) – Turris Babel

Tower of Babel by Abel Grimmer (1570-1619)

Unknown artist

Lucas van Valckenborch (1535 or later–1597) The Tower of Babel – 1595

Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564–1638)  Construction of the Tower of Babel – circa 1595

Marten van Valckenborch (1535–1612)  Tower of Babel – circa 1600

Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526/1530–1569) Tower of Babel – 1563

Marten van Valckenborch (1535–1612) Tower of Babel – possibly c. 1600

M.C. Escher – Tower of Babel

Lucas van Valckenborch (1535 or later–1597)  Tower of Babel – 1594

Lodewijk Toeput, Tower of Babel, c. 1587

 Joos de Momper (1564–1635). Figures attributed to Frans Francken (II) (1581–1642) – Tower of Babel

Hendrick van Cleve (circa 1525–1589), The Construction of the Tower of Babel – 16th century

The Confusion of Tongues by Gustave Doré (1865) (based upon the minaret of Samarra)

Lukas Van Valckenborch – Tower of Babel, 1568

Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526/1530–1569) – The tower of Babel (Alternative title: The “little” Tower of Babel) circa 1563 (1558-1568) – Bruegel painted three versions of the Tower of Babel. One is kept in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the second in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, while the location of the third version (a miniature on ivory) is unknown.

Cornelis Anthonisz (1505 – 1553) – The Fall of the Tower of Babel — 1547