Netherlandish Proverbs is a 1559 oil-on-oak-panel painting by the Flemish
artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder that depicts a scene in which humans and, to
a lesser extent, animals and objects, offer literal illustrations of Dutch
language proverbs and idioms. Running themes in Bruegel's paintings
are the absurdity, wickedness and foolishness of humans, and this is no
exception. The painting's original title, The Blue Cloak or The Folly of
the World, indicates that Bruegel's intent was not just to illustrate
proverbs, but rather to catalog human folly. Many of the people depicted show
the characteristic blank features that Bruegel used to portray fools.
His son, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, specialised in making copies of his
father's work and painted at least 16 copies of Netherlandish Proverbs. Not
all versions of the painting, by father or son, show exactly the same proverbs
and they also differ in other minor details.
History = Context=
Proverbs were very popular in Bruegel's time and before; a hundred years before
Bruegel's painting, illustrations of proverbs had been popular in the Flemish
books of hours. A number of collections were published, including Adagia, by the
Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus. The French writer François Rabelais employed
significant numbers in his novel Gargantua and Pantagruel, completed in
1564. The Flemish artist Frans Hogenberg made
an engraving illustrating 43 proverbs in around 1558, roughly the same time as
Bruegel's painting. The work is very similar in composition to Bruegel's and
includes certain proverbs which also feature prominently in Netherlandish
Proverbs. By depicting literal renditions of proverbs in a peasant
setting, both artists have shown a "world turned upside down".
Bruegel himself had painted several minor paintings on the subject of
proverbs including Big Fish Eat Little Fish and Twelve Proverbs, but
Netherlandish Proverbs is thought to have been his first large-scale painting
on the theme. Proverbs and idioms
Critics have praised the composition for its ordered portrayal and integrated
scene. There are approximately 112 identifiable proverbs and idioms in the
scene, although Bruegel may have included others which cannot be
determined. Some of those incorporated in the painting are still in popular
use, for instance "Swimming against the tide", "Banging one's head against a
brick wall" and "Armed to the teeth", and there are some that are familiar if
not identical to the modern English usage such as "casting roses before
swine". Many more have faded from use or have never been used in English. "Having
one's roof tiled with tarts", for example, which meant to have an
abundance of everything and was an image Bruegel would later feature in his
painting of the idyllic Land of Cockaigne.
The Blue Cloak, the piece's original title, features in the centre of the
piece and is being placed on a man by his wife, indicating that she is
cuckolding him. Other proverbs indicate human foolishness. A man fills in a pond
after his calf has died. Just above the central figure of the blue-cloaked man
another man carries daylight in a basket. Some of the figures seem to
represent more than one figure of speech, such as the man shearing a sheep
in the centre bottom left of the picture. He is sitting next to a man
shearing a pig, so represents the expression "One shears sheep and one
shears pigs", meaning that one has the advantage over the other, but may also
represent the advice "Shear them but don't skin them", meaning make the most
of available assets. = List of proverbs and idioms featured
in the painting= Inspiration for other paintings
This painting has inspired others to depict multiple proverbs in their
paintings, also. An illustration from the Hong Kong magazine Passion Times
illustrates dozens of Cantonese proverbs. The painting Proverbidioms was
also inspired by this Dutch painting to depict English proverbs and idioms.
Notes = Footnotes=
References Hagen, Rainer. Hagen, Rose-Marie, ed.
Bruegel: The Complete Paintings. Taschen. ISBN 3822859915.
De Rynck, Patrick. How to Read a Painting: Lessons from the Old Masters.
New York: Abrams. ISBN 0810955768. "The Netherlandish Proverbs by Pieter
Brueghel the Younger". Fleming Museum, University of Vermont. 2004. Retrieved
18 May 2007. Mieder, Wolfgang. "The Netherlandish
Proverbs: An International Symposium on the Pieter Brueg(h)els". University of
Vermont. Further reading
Orenstein, Nadine M.. Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints. The
Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 9780870999901.
External links Bruegel's The Dutch Proverbs,
Smarthistory video, commentary by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker
The Netherlandish Proverbs, Zoomable and Annotated
Interactive mobile/responsive version of The Netherlandish Proverbs