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| The Blind Leading the Blind, by Pieter Brueghel L'Ancien |
Scorsese
once said that ‘Life is the overcoming of one painful obstacle after the next’ and
if one looks closely at a Bruegal, the initial pleasure of the colourful scene of
16th Century life in Flanders : the wood framed houses, peasants at
leisure, family festivals, village parties, you can see the pains of being
human and the obstacles to overcome.
First Glance
He worked
during the ‘mini ice-age’: a freak spell of crippling cold and cruel weather in
the second half of the 16th Century in Flanders. It was also during the splitting of the
Catholic church, where Flanders was Catholic and Holland was Protestant.
At first
glance, one would think that Bruegal simply enjoyed capturing a familiar drama
or a random disaster, but actually much more magic takes place in his painted
‘frame’
But looking
closer at ‘Man beaten at a card game’ illustrates that something as
frivolous as a game could lead to fatality when the impulses and passions are
not controlled.
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| Man beaten at a card game |
See the
woman in despair with her eyes rolled to heaven? See the man poising a garden fork? See the other man hitting him with a baton of wood, and no
sense of responsibility or worry of the consequence of his acts? The humorous title, with its duel meaning, also shows what drama is being made out of just a game.
Travels
A good
painting is a painting which structures an image, which helps an onlooker to
stand back and think about something, and be objective.
After
spending time in Italy, learning about landscape painting in 1552, he returned
to Flanders to paint his own world and was nicknamed ‘the rustic’ His paintings were precise, with calm serene landscapes and showed
within it the subject matter human beings of his day in the setting of
festivals, marriages, arguments, and daily work.
Brueghel as
an artist had attained an objective viewpoint, with insight into human behaviour
and a means to disengaging from the dramas. He paints his groups of people in the moment, at the moment when they are free of
any mask of artifice, and victims of their own pulsion, for he felt that human
beings in their most modest and vulnerable represented the cruel reality of a
world full of tests and difficulties.
People lost
in vice, barrels of booze arriving, lusty dancing, and a wedding with a ‘bland’
looking bride, men fighting over cards are the subjects he chooses. Behaviours
and traditions and customs fascinate him: these automatic behaviours we follow
without second thought (a priest blessing the marriage bed of a bland drunk
looking bride who does not look at all in love)
The only
hope in a Bruegal picture is the landscape. In the rear of his dramas, the scenery is brightly lit,
serene. He shows the trees and
hills, as a place to revere nature and its rules are the most grounding and
sane part of the picture in where all else seems crazy. His landscapes have the
same shimmer as an angel’s halo, showing that in Bruegal’s eyes, the power of
nature is absolute and it is Nature that dominates man.
Perhaps by
lovingly portraying the foibles of man, Brueghel hoped for our objectivity,
hoping to nurture higher states of the soul: peace, virtue, abundance and
divinity.
Seeing with love
Yet the
reaching of his vision of this sacred state is not attained by condemning human
nature. Brueghel’s way of seeing
is not dissimilar to the words of Stefan Sweig, who said
“I
personally find pleasure in understanding human beings rather than judging
them”
Brueghel’s
paintings are very carefully entwined with proverbial wisdoms of the time. ‘Do not worship false prophets’ is very
literally illustrated in one of his scenes, the very possible likelihood that
we will all at one point be duped by a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
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| Worshipping of a False Prophet, Brueghel |
His
painting ‘bird trap’, a wooden board with a rope leading to the hand of some
hunter, perched ready to slam down upon ravenous birds below, is a mere
metaphor for the dangers of the skaters on the frozen lake, whose lives are in peril
at any moment should the ice suddenly crack.
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| The Bird Trap 1605 |
In ‘An
allegory to love’ he shows a woman absorbed in her own image in a Mirror while
allowing herself to succumb to a passionate courtier, illustrating that vanity
will only lead to false love and idols.
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| An Allegory to Love, by Jan Brueghel |
Sin: Loving but learning
But are his and the dynasty's paintings merely warnings? Do they
have a moral superiority? Are they
judgemental? Is it Brueghel’s intention that a sinner be changed by looking at his
paintings? Be it lust, anger, greed, envy, laziness, vanity or covetousness
that is your weakness, will looking at a Bruegal ever help you face your
faults? Does a painting
which is judgemental invites a person to really think. A judgemental painting merely invites a
vigilante mob of stone throwers, seen quite clearly in Brueghel's image of the adulterous woman.
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| The Adulterous Woman |
The
Breughel dynasty was a big enterprise, consisting of Breugel the elder and his
two sons, Jan and Pieter, plus other artists who joined. Their spreading of the word of God is
not attained by criticism and judgement, but rather understanding and love,
striving to understand the current trends of thinking and behaviour, rather
than condemn human beings for their failures.
It seems
that by observing the foibles of others, one can recognise those same foibles
in the self and can be used as reminders and warnings to keep making the
mistakes of children, for life is too short. Greek thinker Epictetus said that it is only when we stop
blaming others for our misfortunes and see the fault in our own action that we
begin to find inner peace and love.
Growth and Empathy
Breughel’s
paintings show the pains of life with empathy and yet the ever prevalent
landscape, glowing in the rear is a reminder that there is always faith. Life is perilous and we are vulnerable. It is a hard way, and with care and
attention, you can tread carefully.
“Enter by
the narrow Gate. For the gate is wide
and the way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are
many. For the gate is narrow and
the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few,”
Booze, excess,
lust, anger… are lessons for us and we can learn from misfortune and
grown. If we do not learn from our
mistakes and reflect on the old morals left to us by the dead wise, Brueghel
warns us that peril and destruction await. We must
also take care with whom we invest our trust. The blind leading the blind, shows a line of blind men
falling into a hole.
Many of his
paintings are currently on view at the exhibition 'La dynastie Brueghel' at the
Pinacothèque de Paris, Madeleine, Paris until 16 Mars 2014
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