Pieter Bruegels Netherlandish Proverbs - 1559

Introduction

Pieter Bruegel’s Netherlandish Proverbs 1559-1560, is based on Frans Hogenberg's print, The Blue Cloak, which is also known as The Folly of the World c. 1558. Netherlandish Proverbs is done in a satire comedy format depicting man as he was seen in everyday life in the sixteenth century Netherlands.

Bruegel’s paintings, analyzed in many ways and across many academic fields which include Paul Vandenbroeck’s anthropological views and Herman Pleij history of irony and folly. Margaret Sullivan has associated Bruegel's peasant imagery with satire, cultural status, and humanist learning. Ethan Kavaler explores the visual communications in the 16th century, while Walter Gibson ties Bruegel to the chambers of rhetoric. Alan Dundes and Claudia Stibbe researched the meaning behind the imagery of Bruegel's painting and Mark Meadow places Bruegel’s proverbs as rhetorical training, which conditioned people to store and retrieve knowledge systematically. Miedema responds to Alpers on Bruegel's depictions of peasants in the comic mode. Guy Wells and Margaret Carroll have approached Bruegel in the political and religious atmosphere in the sixteenth century Netherland.

As I find myself following these scholars in analyzing Bruegel’s Netherlandish Proverbs, I will explore Bruegel's use of a red herring and the way he structurally formatted his painting. I believe Bruegel's painting gives us clues to the cultural atmosphere of political and religious changes, along with the important use of laughter which helped to bond this turbulent sixteenth century society.

Pieter Bruegel's Red Herring

Viewing habits in the 16th century were understood to have a central theme in relationship to strategically placed images located in the four corners. In both the print and the painting of Hogenberg’s and Bruegel’s depiction of proverbs, the blue cloak is considered central. Normally blue is associated with the Virgin Mary, but in this topsy- turvey world blue it is associated with deception. Bruegel and Hogenberg show this deception by having an adulteress cover her husband in a blue cloak.

In the upper right hand corner we see a pleasant “shitting by the gallows”. The gallows are associated with justice and the shitting peasant signifies disregard and disdain for authority.

In the lower right corner, we have a man holding a lantern pointing to an ax by the roots of the tree. This proverb “In search for the honest man” is known from the Greek philosopher and founder of the Cynic school, Diogenes who wandered though the streets of Athens in search of an honest man.

In the lower left hand corner, we have a women tying up the devil. “She would bind the devil himself to a pillow.” Pillow in Dutch signifies a place of power such as that deriving from an elected or appointed position.

In the upper left hand corner we have a broom sticking out the window. The proverb “there the broom sticks out” refers to a husband having a good time when the wife is out. This proverb certainly ties in with our Blue Cloak but when one notices the herring hanging beneath the upside down world one wonders if Bruegel is throwing us a red herring. A red herring is something that draws attention away from the central issue. And when we really look at this painting we are able to see that the broom sticking out is beneath a tart, which associates the tarts with the left hand corner and not the broom sticking out.

We may compare our tarts to Bruegel painting "The Land of Cockaigne” which was known in Bruegels day as the land of plenty. There are tarts on the roof that completely covers the roof, signifying prosperous times and full bellies. In Netherlandish Proverbs the tarts are not covering the roof and quite sparse comparatively, signifying rough times and not enough to eat.

Knowing we have been thrown a red herring, we can once again look for our central place within the painting which is the false pillar right above our adulteress. This pillar is referred to as a false pillar of society, and relates to the troubled times in the 16th century Netherlands.