“Netherlandish Proverbs” by Pieter Bruegel, the Elder is one of the most popular paintings from the European renaissance era. It is also referred to as Dutch Proverbs. It displays a setting in which humans, animals, and objects exhibit Dutch proverbs and idioms. What makes it fascinating is that it depicts a large number of proverbs, which have been illustrated. Viewers enjoy looking at it and spotting the proverbs in it, almost like completing a fun puzzle.
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It was created in 1559 with oil on oak wood. Bruegel's work, like that of several other Northern Renaissance artists of the 16th century Dutch School, exhibits his mastery of oil painting, management of colour pigments, and inventive compositional flair. The human figures are miniature yet extremely detailed and realistic.
This picture is consistent with Bruegel's usual themes of human stupidity, cruelty, and idiocy. This painting is a collection of human foolishness, and the persons represented have the typical blank features employed by Bruegel to depict fools. It's hilarious and amusing, but it also conveys a message about ourselves as humans.
A Lilliputian swarm of small men, women, children, and animals act out selected instances of wisdom or foolishness in Netherlandish Proverbs. It is Bruegel's depiction of current life - one defined by a deep sense of the grotesque, the darkly hilarious, and the morally corrupt: the inevitable result of the Fall - in keeping with the less indulgent religious art of the Protestant Northern Renaissance.
Bruegel has buried his proverbs in both buildings and the landscape in a variety of inventive ways. Most of the time, it is a direct visual representation of the proverbs. The guy atop the battlements of the Tower holding his coat in the breeze symbolises the saying to 'know where the wind is coming from'. According to their proverbs, the woman depicted putting a blue coat on her husband represents deceit.
It also includes a pillar biter using religious hypocrisy to put others down, the innkeeper demonstrating their proclivity to cheat others by hanging their scissors 'out there,' the two-faced woman carrying fire and water, or simply those whose opinions change direction with the wind hanging their cloak out to see which way it blows.
It also has a picture of two males on it. One shears sheep, while the other shears pigs. This is designed to show one person having all of the benefits while the other has none. It could also signify the adage "shear them, don't skin them," which means make the most of what you have.
It is implied that Bruegel's intention was to portray the universal ignorance of humankind rather than merely proverbs. Many of the proverbs presented highlight the absurdity of human behaviour. It also depicts that some amount of idiocy or stupidity is inevitable in human nature.
The exact number of proverbs in Netherlandish Proverbs is unknown because modern scholarly interpretations differ, and in certain cases, multiple proverbs may be given to the same component in the artwork. It still remains a mystery how many proverbs were actually intentionally depicted according to Bruegel.
In reality, the image is a critique of society as a whole, but the countryside setting allows Bruegel's audience to detach themselves from what they see. The society in front of them appears to be anarchy, with everyone looking out for themselves, which reflects the proverbs they represent. In this competitive environment, having an advantage over others is more important than living well. Therefore the painting is highly relevant till date.
Bruegel isolates the viewers and exposes the absurdity of humans in this painting. For some, it may be a hilarious painting, for some it may be a collection of visual proverbs, and for some it may be a philosophical take on human society. This painting truly depicts the essence of art, where the viewer can take away anything that they wish to infer from the painting.