DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.44747#0033
Erasmus had already taught in his Praise of Folly
A different view is presented by David Kunzle, in an Art Bulletin
article of 1977, that Bruegel confined this scene to rural peasant
society, showing the reality of peasant life from an elite, aristocratic
point of view which sees peasant behavior as typically irrational and
foolish.
This is the way peasants really are. (author’s italics). In
saying this, Bruegel was not denying that the urban and upper
classes were immune to such follies; far from it. But he was
reinforcing the idea of the lower classes as the characteristic
repository, and in some sense the true source of irrational and
foolish behavior.19^
Thus, Kunzle does not accept the interpretation of Bruegel’s
peasants as allegorical figures of universal human folly. Keith Moxey
supports Kunzle’s view, contending that the viewers of this picture
were wealthy, educated humanists who took special pride in the
superior morality of urban life conducted “according to a strict code
of ethics.’’ Humanists assumed the behavior of city dwellers to be on
a higher level than the irrational actions common to the inhabitants
of rural villages.20)
In my view, Kunzle and Moxey completely misunderstand the
essential nature of this work because it represents people of all classes
and occupations. In addition to the peasants demonstrating the
proverb of “one shears sheep, the other pigs” (performing the same
action, one person gains richness and another poverty) there is the
prince who “has the world on a string” (controls everything as he
wishes), the rich landlord who “throws his money in the water”
(wastes money), the monk who “hangs his cape on a fence” (returns
to secular life), the knight who “bells the cat,” and the craftsman
who finds it “easy to cut straps out of other people’s leather” (be
generous with other people’s possessions). That is, this painting
presents the deception, folly, failure, and weakness found in any type
of human society, along with living wisdom, moral lessons, and
humor.
I see this picture as a representation of the world of Everyone, as
conceived by the people of the sixteenth century. It is built around
the ideas expressed by four core proverbs.
The first of these is “everyone pulls to get the longest end,” an
allegory of greed which is depicted in the right foreground of the
picture. A year before the Netherlandish Proverbs, Bruegel produced
a preparatory drawing for an engraving entitled Eick (Everyone)
which included this proverb as well as “Everyone seeks himself” and
“Nobody knows himself.” This same Eick or Everyone was the uni-
fied theme of the procession celebrating the Feast of the Assumption
held in Antwerp in August 15, 1563.
The second is the proverb of the woman “hanging, a blue cloak on
her husband” (cheating on him) in the center of the picture. Since
proverb paintings and prints were commonly known as “blue cloaks,”
it is apparent that it referred generally to the lies and deceptions
prevalent in society. One year before Bruegel’s Netherlandish Prov-
erbs was painted, Frans Hogenberg’s etching was printed with the
title of The Blue Cloak (1558) which contained forty two separate
proverbs. This important predecessor to Bruegel’s Netherlandish
Proverbs bore the inscription,
This is generally called the Blue Cloak, but it would be
better named “Folly of the World”.
This title was repeated in subsequent paintings and prints of
proverbs, including those by Bruegel, which were accordingly called
“blue cloaks.”
The third core proverb refers to what has been identified by
previous scholars as a “topsy-turvy world,” shown by the upside-
down globe with a cross attached seen under the eaves of the farm
house on the right. However meaning of the perverted world in his
painting should be interpreted in more depth. In Bruegel’s painting,
this inversion of the world, or de verkeerde Were Id, is not the same
thing as the reversal of positions in the social order which was a
popular theme of contemporary prints, the II Mondes all Eiversa, in
which parents are shown being fed by children or peasants ride in a
carriage while their lord plows the fields. As explained in Verwijen
Verdam’s Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek (Dictionary of Medieval
Dutch), the word verkeert means “wrong, evil, diverging from the
correct path, morally corrupt.”21) According to Kilian’s Etymolo-
gicum Teutonicae Linguae: sive Dictionanum Teutonico-Latinum
(Etymologicon of the Dutch language with Latin explanations),
published in 1599,22) verkeert corresponds to the Latin perversus and
pravus and these words are defined as “warped, incorrect, wrong,
false, or absurd.” Therefore, the “upside-down world” in Nether-
landish Proverbs refers to evil or absurd behavior, as indicated by
proverbs like “carrying water in one hand and fire in the other”
43
A different view is presented by David Kunzle, in an Art Bulletin
article of 1977, that Bruegel confined this scene to rural peasant
society, showing the reality of peasant life from an elite, aristocratic
point of view which sees peasant behavior as typically irrational and
foolish.
This is the way peasants really are. (author’s italics). In
saying this, Bruegel was not denying that the urban and upper
classes were immune to such follies; far from it. But he was
reinforcing the idea of the lower classes as the characteristic
repository, and in some sense the true source of irrational and
foolish behavior.19^
Thus, Kunzle does not accept the interpretation of Bruegel’s
peasants as allegorical figures of universal human folly. Keith Moxey
supports Kunzle’s view, contending that the viewers of this picture
were wealthy, educated humanists who took special pride in the
superior morality of urban life conducted “according to a strict code
of ethics.’’ Humanists assumed the behavior of city dwellers to be on
a higher level than the irrational actions common to the inhabitants
of rural villages.20)
In my view, Kunzle and Moxey completely misunderstand the
essential nature of this work because it represents people of all classes
and occupations. In addition to the peasants demonstrating the
proverb of “one shears sheep, the other pigs” (performing the same
action, one person gains richness and another poverty) there is the
prince who “has the world on a string” (controls everything as he
wishes), the rich landlord who “throws his money in the water”
(wastes money), the monk who “hangs his cape on a fence” (returns
to secular life), the knight who “bells the cat,” and the craftsman
who finds it “easy to cut straps out of other people’s leather” (be
generous with other people’s possessions). That is, this painting
presents the deception, folly, failure, and weakness found in any type
of human society, along with living wisdom, moral lessons, and
humor.
I see this picture as a representation of the world of Everyone, as
conceived by the people of the sixteenth century. It is built around
the ideas expressed by four core proverbs.
The first of these is “everyone pulls to get the longest end,” an
allegory of greed which is depicted in the right foreground of the
picture. A year before the Netherlandish Proverbs, Bruegel produced
a preparatory drawing for an engraving entitled Eick (Everyone)
which included this proverb as well as “Everyone seeks himself” and
“Nobody knows himself.” This same Eick or Everyone was the uni-
fied theme of the procession celebrating the Feast of the Assumption
held in Antwerp in August 15, 1563.
The second is the proverb of the woman “hanging, a blue cloak on
her husband” (cheating on him) in the center of the picture. Since
proverb paintings and prints were commonly known as “blue cloaks,”
it is apparent that it referred generally to the lies and deceptions
prevalent in society. One year before Bruegel’s Netherlandish Prov-
erbs was painted, Frans Hogenberg’s etching was printed with the
title of The Blue Cloak (1558) which contained forty two separate
proverbs. This important predecessor to Bruegel’s Netherlandish
Proverbs bore the inscription,
This is generally called the Blue Cloak, but it would be
better named “Folly of the World”.
This title was repeated in subsequent paintings and prints of
proverbs, including those by Bruegel, which were accordingly called
“blue cloaks.”
The third core proverb refers to what has been identified by
previous scholars as a “topsy-turvy world,” shown by the upside-
down globe with a cross attached seen under the eaves of the farm
house on the right. However meaning of the perverted world in his
painting should be interpreted in more depth. In Bruegel’s painting,
this inversion of the world, or de verkeerde Were Id, is not the same
thing as the reversal of positions in the social order which was a
popular theme of contemporary prints, the II Mondes all Eiversa, in
which parents are shown being fed by children or peasants ride in a
carriage while their lord plows the fields. As explained in Verwijen
Verdam’s Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek (Dictionary of Medieval
Dutch), the word verkeert means “wrong, evil, diverging from the
correct path, morally corrupt.”21) According to Kilian’s Etymolo-
gicum Teutonicae Linguae: sive Dictionanum Teutonico-Latinum
(Etymologicon of the Dutch language with Latin explanations),
published in 1599,22) verkeert corresponds to the Latin perversus and
pravus and these words are defined as “warped, incorrect, wrong,
false, or absurd.” Therefore, the “upside-down world” in Nether-
landish Proverbs refers to evil or absurd behavior, as indicated by
proverbs like “carrying water in one hand and fire in the other”
43