Your being Dutch (should you be) doesn't mean the zaniness instantly interprets itself. Brueghel was Flemish; his mother tongue was Dutch as are the precepts he's gathered on the canvas. While there are a few shapes and figures you might be able to discern with 21st century perceptions, the wisdom would be more accessible if we were reared on those Flemish fields.
Still some images need no translation.
Here's spilled porridge in Brueghel's world, but spiltled milk in ours. Whatever the substance, the wisdom translates: this poor guy--look at him holding his head!--is wasting his time crying over it.
One measure of Breughel's jaw-dropping genius is the way he can dish up so many proverbs in so small a space. Here's just a bit of that lower right hand corner.
The guy on the plank seems tortured, and he is, trying to reach from one loaf of bread to another, obviously an inhuman stretch. Poor guy. Niet van het ene brood tot het andeere weten te gereken translates sadly: he's barely able to stretch from one loaf to the next, which suggests, sadly, that getting his daily bread is a greater chore than it should be.
The tug of war behind him features two gentlemen in white obviously competing for something. Those who have plumbed the depths of Flemish moralism claim they're fighting over the longest end: ze trekken om het langst, which brings back some furtive moments from my own childhood, times when my dad used to hold three toothpicks in his hand, two of which were broken off, then offer them to his kids. It was a means by which "going first" would be determined. He had three children--hence, three toothpicks. I remember my own anxiety. These two guys are fighting over the longest end.
That man hugging the pole?--you can't help but notice the leather bag hanging from his belt--a purse, and a purse with something in it--look at it hang. Here's the pearl of great price: Liefde ist war de geldbuidel hangt. That one hurts, Valentine's Day just now behind us. "Love is on the side with the money." Is that depressing level of cynicism Dutch or Calvinist?
If you were wondering about that spherical thing with the cross in the middle, if you were thinking it was a globe--the world, in fact--you're right. I don't doubt that the appearance of the dandy who's spinning it would mean something to a 16th century Flemish audience, but I'm just guessing that the get up is meant to suggest his being well-heeled (check out the headdress) because he is, in fact, spinning the world on his thumb (tough to do, btw). All of that translates into Hij laat de wereld op zijn duim draaien. He is, or at least thinks he is, on top of things--which begs the question, "Is he in for a great fall?" Don't know. My Calvinist heart says so.
And if the bearded man in the top left corner, the man with what appears to be some kind of halo around his head, the man sitting in what seems to be a throne--if he looks like Jesus of Nazareth, you're onto something. The monkish-looking pious guy in front of him appears to be tweaking Jesus's beard, which is remarkably two-toned. You may have guessed the white beard is something he picked up from the wardrobe department. That monkish guy hung it from Jesus's own jaw. Rather impish of him, don't you think?
Well, apparently Brueghel's people thought so. Voor God een baard van vlas maken is the proverb at the heart of things here, but the idea requires a believer to translate because word by word it would make little sense: "to tie a beard made of flax to the face of Christ." Such silliness is an abomination. What the line suggests is how some people cover their deceit with sweet piety.
That happens? Seems so, in Antwerp of 1559, and, yes, even today.
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