The devils are in the detail
Despite portraits being a stalwart of Dutch and Flemish art in the 16th century, and a lucrative market for artists, Pieter Bruegel never painted any. He specialised in genre paintings portraying the lives of peasants – not a common subject matter at the time.
But humanist ideals were beginning to influence artists and scholars, and Italy was coming to the end of its High Renaissance of art and culture, making Bruegel an innovative pioneer in the Dutch Golden Age. He was to become increasingly influential.
He is sometimes referred to as “Peasant Bruegel”, in an attempt to distinguish him from the other painters in his family, including his remarkably gifted son, Pieter Bruegel the Younger. The epithet came about because it was believed that he must have come from humble origins, due to his emphasis on highlighting the routine working days of the lowly. But in more recent years, scholars have noted the intellectual sophistication of his work and thinking, and believe that he was a highly educated member of the gentry.
After his training, Bruegel travelled to Italy to see the works of the Italian masters. In 1555 he returned to Antwerp, working as a successful print designer for the main publisher at the time. It was only later in life that he concentrated purely on painting, and all of his great masterpieces were produced in little more than a decade. By then, his pictures had become much sought after by wealthy patrons and collectors.
In 1559 Bruegel painted one of his most exquisite works, the richly detailed and mesmerising Netherlandish Proverbs, which depicts literal visual representations of more than 90 Dutch sayings. Variants of a large number of the proverbs Bruegel illustrated are still used in modern Flemish, French, English and Dutch. To the people of 16th-century Flanders, proverbs were a familiar part of their vocabulary, and as the subject of an artwork, would have been recognisable as well as entertaining.
Many focus on the absurdity of human behaviour, reinforced by Bruegel’s masterly and complex illustration of a densely packed coastal town square, where the proverbs are played out by the residents. Today, the work may appear charming, but at the time, viewers would have noted the painting’s more serious implications referring to the dangers of folly, which often led to sin.
Some of the proverbs depicted are grotesque, some rather comical, but all are as real as the people’s behaviour. Each little scene is portrayed independently of the others. In the centre of the painting, a woman in a red dress places a blue coat over her husband – a reference to the Dutch proverb “She puts the blue cloak on her husband”, which meant that she cheats on, or deceives him. The painting is also sometimes known as The Blue Cloak because of this particular scene.
In the lower left, a man can be seen with his head up against a wall, signifying the expression “To bang one’s head against brick”. Nearby a man in armour sits with a cat and a bell on a piece of string. There are two possible explanations: it could either be “To bell the cat” (to carry out a dangerous or impractical plan), or else “To put your armour on” (to be angry).
Curiously, the roof of one house can be seen littered with a number of pies, indicating that “To have the roof tiled with tarts” suggests that you are very wealthy. Less appealingly, if you have “A hole in one’s roof ” as seen in one cottage, you are thought to be unintelligent.
The detail pervading the painting is overwhelming, with every corner of the canvas conveying one proverb or another. Even up in the top right, nearer the horizon and painted small, a man can be seen crouching down by some gallows – a reference to the saying “To crap on the gallows”, which means that you are undeterred by any penalty.
A neighbour “Biting a pillar” is supposedly a religious hypocrite. A little dog seen in a pot is telling you that if you arrive late for dinner, you may find all the food has been eaten. Scissors pictured outside a building – the proverb “The scissors hang out there” – warn you that you are liable to be cheated inside.
A particularly clear depiction in the foreground, of two men, one shearing a sheep and the other a pig, tells us that one has all the advantages and the other has none.
Sticking to subject matter he was most familiar with, Bruegel also painted a series of works that depicted different seasons of the year. The Hunters in the Snow,a wonderful snowy winter landscape, pictures seemingly unsuccessful hunters returning from an expedition. Their dogs are by their sides, and it’s apparent from the tracks of some animal disappearing before them, they have been unsuccessful in their quest. The powerful religious revolution taking place at the time – 1565 – led analysts to feel that Bruegel, or his patron, was aiming to convey the ideals of what country life used to be, reflected in the painting’s serene calm, immaculate brushwork, and perfect composition.
It was recorded that before Bruegel died, he told his wife to burn some of his drawings and other works that included inscriptions which were, according to his biographer, “too sharp or sarcastic… either out of remorse, or for fear that she might come to harm, in some way held responsible for them”. This led to speculation that they were politically provocative in a time of unrest and tension. None of these supposedly disobliging works have ever been found and Bruegel’s legacy remains a clear one – the creator of the some of the most powerful and sublime paintings of this era.
The painting showed the dangers of folly, which often led to sin