Pieter Bruegel the Elder, "the greatest Flemish painter of the 16th century".
13, The Peasant Wedding.
Bruegel specialised in genre paintings populated with peasants; however, the life and manners
of the common man as the main focus of a work was rare in painting at that time and he is
now regarded as a pioneer of genre painting. His earthy, unsentimental but vivid depiction
of the rituals of village life — including agriculture, hunts, meals, festivals, dances
and games — are unique windows on a vanished folk culture of Netherlandish life and culture,
providing a prime source of iconographic evidence about both physical and social aspects of
sixteenth century life. The Peasant Wedding, dating from 1567, is one of the artist’s
most iconic genre paintings and reveals the pleasure Bruegel must have taken in painting
peasants and different aspects of their lives. Due to his preference for these subjects,
he earned the sobriquet Peasant-Bruegel, though his works are in fact charged with a sophisticated,
intellectual and symbolic power. The artist was also a leading figure of the Antwerp humanist
circle.
The wedding feast takes place in a barn in the summertime — the two sheaves of grain
by a rake recalling the work of harvesting and the toilsome life of the peasants. The
bride sits in front of a green wall-hanging, with a paper-crown hung above her head and
she also wears a crown on her head, as she passively waits, not participating in the
celebrations taking place around her. The bridegroom is not in attendance of the wedding
feast in accordance to Flemish custom. The plates are carried on a door off its hinges.
The main food of the peasants was bread, porridge and soup. Other features of the scene include
two pipers playing the pijpzak, an unbreeched boy in the foreground licking a plate, the
wealthy man at the far right feeding a dog by putting bread on the bench and a mysterious
extra foot seen under the load of dishes being carried by the two men in the right foreground.
It is believed that as well as being a literal portrayal of a peasants’ wedding, the panel
painting also contains an important moral dimension, commenting on the excuse favoured
by the peasants for self-indulgence. Bruegel is no longer interested in personifying human
foibles as Boschian monsters; now he subtly depicts our human follies in a naturalistic
and humorous manner.
14, The Peasant Dance.
The Peasant Dance was painted at about the same time as the previous plate — the sizes
of the two paintings being the same, suggesting they were likely intended as a pair or as
part of a series illustrating peasant life. They are the two most outstanding examples
of Bruegel’s late style, which is characterised by his use of monumental Italianate figures.
Once again, Bruegel probably intended the painting to have a moral sense rather than
simply being an affectionate portrayal of peasant life. The sins of gluttony, lust and
anger can all be identified in the painting. The man seated next to the bagpipe player
wears a peacock feather in his hat, which serves as a symbol of vanity and pride. The
occasion for the peasants’ revelry is a saint’s day, although the dancers turn their
backs on the church and pay little attention to the image of the Virgin that hangs on the
tree. The prominence of the tavern makes it clear that they are preoccupied with material,
rather than spiritual matters.
This panel, neither signed nor dated, was looted by Napoleon Bonaparte and brought to
Paris in 1808, being later returned in 1815. Another version of the same theme now resides
in the Detroit Institute of Arts, which is dated to 1566. Although the surface is of
a poor condition, being generally worn, critics tend to agree today that it is an original
work by Bruegel. The figures are smaller and therefore the scene is more crowded and detailed,
making the composition, in some respects, more effective than its more famous counterpart,
which hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
15, The Beggars.
Also known as The Cripples, this 1568 oil-on-panel is the only painting by Bruegel to be exhibited
in the Louvre, which it received as a gift in 1892. It presents the unsettling scene
of five cripples, huddled on the outside ground, accompanied by a beggar-woman in the right
background, holding a begging bowl. Various attempts have been made to interpret the image
as an allusion to a historical event, with the foxes’ tails attached on the beggars’
clothes referencing the Gueux, a rebel party formed against the government of Philip II
of Spain and Granvelle. The five men are no ordinary beggars, as they wear carnival headgear
representing various classes of society: a cardboard crown (the king), a paper shako
(the soldier), a beret (the bourgeois), a cap (the peasant), and a mitre (the bishop)
all suggesting ambiguous satirical meanings. Some commentators have suggested that the
beggars’ physical imperfections are intended to symbolise moral decrepitude, which can
affect all men, irrespective of class.
On the back of the painting, there are two inscriptions, which seem to date from the
sixteenth century. One is in Flemish and in a very fragmentary state; the other is in
Latin and records the admiration a humanist critic felt for Bruegel’s achievements,
whose ‘art surpasses Nature itself’. The painting dates from the end of Bruegel’s
career, when he displayed a keener interest in the natural world.
16, The Blind Leading the Blind.
Painted a year before Bruegel’s death, this famous image conveys a bitter and sorrowful
tone. Executed in distemper on linen canvas, it depicts the Biblical parable of the blind
leading the blind, as described in Matthew 15:14, in which Christ refers to the Pharisees.
The painting demonstrates Bruegel’s mastery of observation, as each of the blind men has
a different eye affliction, including corneal leukoma, atrophy of globe and removed eyes.
The figures hold their heads aloft to make better use of their other senses, demonstrating
the artist’s careful observation of authentic blind people. The diagonal composition reinforces
the off-kilter motion of the six figures falling in progression. The image may have been influenced
by the establishment of the Council of Troubles by the government of the Spanish Netherlands
in 1567. The council ordered mass arrests and executions to enforce Spanish rule and
suppress Protestantism.
Bruegel expands the two blind men in the parable to six and they are well dressed, rather than
wearing the peasant clothing that typifies his late work. They are portrayed as a procession
of disfigured men, passing along a path bordered by a river on one side and a village with
a church on the other. The leader of the group has fallen on his back into a ditch and, since
they are all linked by their staffs, he drags his companions down with him. The first blind
man’s face is not visible; the second twists his head as he falls, perhaps to avoid landing
face-first. The shin guard-clad third man, on his toes with knees bent and face to the
sky, shares a staff with the second, by which he is being pulled down. The others have yet
to stumble, but the same fate appears imminent.
The church in the background, identified as the Sint-Anna Church, at Dilbeek in modern
Belgium, has sparked much modern commentary. Some critics believe that its inclusion is
evidence of the painting’s moralistic intent — that while the first two blind men stumble
and are beyond redemption, the other four are behind the church and so may be saved.
Another interpretation suggests that the church, with a withered tree placed before it, is
an anti-Catholic symbol, and that those who follow it will fall following a blind leader.
Others deny any symbolism in the building, noting that churches frequently appear in
Bruegel’s village scenes, as they were a common part of the village landscape.
Bruegel’s depictions of beggars left a strong influence on those that followed him, such
as David Vinckboons. Hieronymus Wierix incorporated a copy of The Blind Leading the Blind into
the series Twelve Flemish Proverbs. A forgery attributed to Jacob Savery called The Blind
appeared in c. 1600, bearing a false inscription dating it to 1562. Bruegel’s son Pieter
Brueghel the Younger painted a larger copy in c. 1616 with additional details, including
a flock of sheep, which hangs today in the Louvre.
17, The Misanthrope.
This tempera canvas painting was completed in 1568 and is held at the National Museum
of Capodimonte in Naples, Italy. Encased in a square frame, it depicts a black-robed and
white-bearded elderly man, who clasps his hands before him. A smaller barefooted man
secretly uses a knife to cut the strings of the other man’s money pouch. The old man
appears lost in thought, failing to notice both the theft and the thorns that lie in
his path. A transparent sphere with a cross at its peak encloses the thief. The Flemish
inscription at the bottom reads: “Because the world is perfidious, / I am going into
mourning.” The moral suggests that a relinquishment of the world is not possible, as we must face
up to the world’s difficulties and refuse to abandon our responsibilities.
The image teems with rich symbolism. The small figure in a glass ball serves as a symbol
of vanity. The hooded misanthrope is contrasted with the shepherd in the background, who guards
his sheep and appears more wise and virtuous, due to the simple, honourable performance
of his duties and his sense of responsibility toward his charges. The misanthrope is walking
unawares towards the mantraps set for him by the world and, in spite of his intentions,
he cannot renounce it as he would wish.
Bruegel is said to have died about the year 1570 at the age of sixty, though other accounts
give 1590 as the date of his death. There are about 45 authenticated surviving paintings,
one third of which are housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. A number of other oil paintings
are known to have been lost. Pieter the Elder had two sons: Pieter Brueghel the Younger
and Jan Brueghel the Elder, who were very small children when their father died and
so were brought up by their grandmother, Mayken Verhulst. The older brother, Pieter Brueghel,
was not the better painter of the two; he copied his father’s style, but without any
degree of great talent. Jan was more successful; he turned to the Baroque style and even collaborated
with Peter Paul Rubens.