TL;DR. A crowd scene is a painting built from many small stories at once, a whole community held in a single frame. Dutch and Flemish masters such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder, David Teniers the Younger, and Jan Steen made the crowded picture a serious art, and learned to compose it so the eye always finds a path. To read a painting full of people, start with the whole and then follow its structure. A crowd scene shows dozens of figures at a feast, a fair, or a festival, and n