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DOI Artikel:Paszkiewicz, Piotr: Noctural bird of wisdom: symbolic functions of the owl in emblems
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18898#0078
9. J. Steen, Afler a Drinking Bout, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (after Reallexikon zur Deutschen
Kunstgeschichte, VI, Miinchen, 1973)
(Brussels, Musee Royaux des Bcaux-Arts) dcals with the same subject. The centrę of the compo-
sition is occupied by a group of silhouettes gathered round a table ou which a jug is placed beside
some fruit. In addition to food, the painter presented other elements symbolizing the sin of
ghittony, first and foremost, the figurę with a pig's head standing by the table and reaching
out for a cup of drink. There is an owi on his head. Here we have a combination of two icono-
graphic motifs personifying one phenomenon. A similar allegory of gluttony is presented in
Heinrich Aldegrever's copperplate-engraving of 1552 where a female figurę riding a pig
(a symbol of Gula and unchastity48) is accompanied by an owi (fig. 10).
The tradition of identifying the owi with gluttony and drunkenness, the origins od which,
as we said before, date back to the 15th century, was ecrually vivid in the following century.
In Pieter Aertsen's painting of 1572, The Rich Kitchen (Copenhagcn, Statens Museum for Kunst),
a big owi is seated over food provisions gathered in the kitchen. The painter did not present
the very act of eating but an abundance of food as a sign of the feast to come. The owi appears
with much the same meaning in the same artistvs Stockholm painting Tivo Women Cooking.
As in the Copenhagen composition, we see not the act of eating but only an introduction to it.
In this sense, the owi occurs ąuite often in 17th century Dutch painting.
The golden age of the Netherlands is a period characterised not only by the magificent develop-
ment of art but also by a rise in spirits consumption. Feasts and drinking bouts were organized
48. D. Bax, Ontcijfering van Jeroen Bosch, Den Haag, 1948, p. 223.
72
Kunstgeschichte, VI, Miinchen, 1973)
(Brussels, Musee Royaux des Bcaux-Arts) dcals with the same subject. The centrę of the compo-
sition is occupied by a group of silhouettes gathered round a table ou which a jug is placed beside
some fruit. In addition to food, the painter presented other elements symbolizing the sin of
ghittony, first and foremost, the figurę with a pig's head standing by the table and reaching
out for a cup of drink. There is an owi on his head. Here we have a combination of two icono-
graphic motifs personifying one phenomenon. A similar allegory of gluttony is presented in
Heinrich Aldegrever's copperplate-engraving of 1552 where a female figurę riding a pig
(a symbol of Gula and unchastity48) is accompanied by an owi (fig. 10).
The tradition of identifying the owi with gluttony and drunkenness, the origins od which,
as we said before, date back to the 15th century, was ecrually vivid in the following century.
In Pieter Aertsen's painting of 1572, The Rich Kitchen (Copenhagcn, Statens Museum for Kunst),
a big owi is seated over food provisions gathered in the kitchen. The painter did not present
the very act of eating but an abundance of food as a sign of the feast to come. The owi appears
with much the same meaning in the same artistvs Stockholm painting Tivo Women Cooking.
As in the Copenhagen composition, we see not the act of eating but only an introduction to it.
In this sense, the owi occurs ąuite often in 17th century Dutch painting.
The golden age of the Netherlands is a period characterised not only by the magificent develop-
ment of art but also by a rise in spirits consumption. Feasts and drinking bouts were organized
48. D. Bax, Ontcijfering van Jeroen Bosch, Den Haag, 1948, p. 223.
72