A History of European Art

Lecture 26: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

bride and her family. The strong diagonal line anchors the composition. Note

the bagpipes, commonly understood as a phallic symbol in this era. The

triangular group at lower left alludes to the Wedding at Cana in a satirical

way, because gluttony seems the sole point here. The artist suggests the

sobriety of the bearded man and the Franciscan friar talking at the right edge,

who are not eating and drinking like the others.

In 1560, Antwerp was at the height of prosperity, with about 1,000 foreign

merchants in residence and some 500 ships entering the harbor every day.

Acquiescing to a demand from the States-General, Spain withdrew its troops

from the Netherlands in 1561. This tactical error led to the rapid spread

of the Protestant Reformation. In 1567, Philip II sent 20,000 troops to the

Netherlands to take back Antwerp and impose the Inquisition. The Flemish

leaders of the opposition, including the duke of Egmont, were beheaded in

1568. This marked the beginning of the Eighty Years’ War.

At this time, Bruegel painted The Blind Leading the Blind (c. 1568).

A line of six blind men in blue and blue-gray robes and cowls follows a

downward diagonal across a long, low canvas. One has already fallen into

a ditch; the next in line proceeds and pulls the staff of the next, although he

does not know where he is headed. The rest follow, hands on shoulders or

poles. Although there is much in Bruegel that alludes to the troubles in the

Netherlands during this period, his own political philosophy seemed to be in

accord with the worldview that his great landscape of the Hunters suggests.

In this physical world in which man exists as one of many creations, the

cause of his recurrent distress is his own folly. In the Gospel of St. Matthew,

Christ remarks, in speaking of the Pharisees, “And if the blind lead the blind,

both shall fall into the ditch.” Ŷ

Pieter Bruegel the Elder:

Artist and Connoisseur, c. 1565, pen and ink drawing, 9 ¾ x 8 ¾”

(22.86 x 20.32 cm), Albertina, Vienna, Austria.

Works Discussed