The Beggars
The Beggars (The Cripples) | |
---|---|
Artist | Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
Year | 1568 |
Type | Oil on panel |
Dimensions | 18.5 cm × 21.5 cm (7.3 in × 8.5 in) |
Location | Louvre, Paris |
The Beggars or The Cripples is an oil-on-panel by the Netherlandish Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1568. It is now in the Louvre in Paris.
History
This work is the only painting by Bruegel in the Louvre, received as a gift in 1892.
Attempts have been made to interpret the picture of five disabled people and a beggar-woman as an allusion to a historical event: the badger's tails, or foxes' tails, on their clothes might refer to the Gueux, a rebel party formed against the government of Philip II of Spain and Granvelle; but these also occur in Bruegel's The Fight Between Carnival and Lent in Vienna, dated 1559. Still, the beggars are not quite ordinary beggars, as they wear carnival headgear representing various classes of society: a cardboard crown (the king), a paper shako (the soldier), a beret (the bourgeois), a cap (the peasant), and a mitre (the bishop). The work clearly has some satirical meaning, which has so far eluded interpretation. Perhaps physical imperfections are meant to symbolise moral decrepitude, which can affect all men irrespective of class.[1]
On the back of the painting are two inscriptions which seem to date from the 16th century. One is in Flemish, and in a very fragmentary state;[2] the other is in Latin and records the admiration some humanist felt for Bruegel, whose art surpasses Nature itself.[3]
The painting dates from the end of Bruegel's career, when he showed a keener interest in the natural world. Tiny though it is, the landscape seen through the opening is bathed in a delicate light which simmers like dew on the foliage.
Description
On the back of the painting is written:[4]
What nature lacks, is lacking in our art,
So great was the grace accorded to our painter.
Here nature, expressed in painted forms, is astonished
To see through these cripples that Bruegel is her equal.
Analysis
Modern eyes may be inclined to conclude that Brugel intended to invoke sympathy for the plight of the disabled figures, but from a historical perspective this is unlikely. Europeans of Bruegel's time gave little regard to beggars, and the painting provides hints that Bruegel shared this denigration: the figures are outside the town walls and are posed in such ways as to provoke contempt and amusement. The foxtail on some of the figures was a symbol at the time of ridicule in political caricature and real life. The woman behind them bears an empty bowl and may appear to be ignoring the beggars.[5]
See also
References
- ^ V. Barker, Pieter Bruegel the elder: A study of his paintings, Arts Publishing Corp. (1926); see also W. S. Gibson, Bruegel, Thames & Hudson Ltd (1977).
- ^ Reconstructed by the Louvre as "Cripples, take heart, and may your affairs prosper.", cf. Louvre webpage
- ^ R. H. Marijnissen, Bruegel, tout l'oeuvre peint et dessiné, Éditions Albin Michel (1988), pp. 354-358 (in French)
- ^ Richardson 2011, p. 61.
- ^ Bonn 2006, p. 111.
Works cited
- Bonn, Robert L. (2006). Painting Life: The Art of Pieter Bruegel, the Elder. Robert Bonn. ISBN 978-1-884092-12-1.
- Richardson, Todd M. (2011). Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Art Discourse in the Sixteenth-century Netherlands. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7546-6816-9.
External links
- The Beggars at the Louvre
- 99 works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
- Complete list of paintings which includes all of the 100 proverbs from the painting, with explanation (in French).
- Creativity Brueghel laid the foundation of the Netherlands School
- "Bruegel" . Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.
- Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints, a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which includes material on The Beggars (see Crippled Beggars)
- v
- t
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- List of paintings
- Parable of the Sower (1557)
- Naval Battle in the Gulf of Naples (1558–1562)
- The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559)
- Netherlandish Proverbs (1559)
- Children's Games (1560)
- Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
- The Triumph of Death (c. 1562)
- The Fall of the Rebel Angels (1562)
- The Suicide of Saul (1562)
- Two Monkeys (1562)
- Dull Gret (1563)
- Adoration of the Magi in a Winter Landscape (1563)
- The Tower of Babel (1563)
- Landscape with the Flight into Egypt (1563)
- Adoration of the Magi in a Winter Landscape (1563 or 1567)
- Adoration of the Kings (1564)
- The Procession to Calvary (1564)
- Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (1565)
- The Gloomy Day (1565)
- The Harvesters (1565)
- The Hay Harvest (1565)
- The Return of the Herd (1565)
- The Wine of Saint Martin's Day (c. 1565–1568)
- The Hunters in the Snow (1565)
- Winter Landscape with Ice skaters and Bird trap (1565)
- Massacre of the Innocents (c. 1565–1567)
- The Census at Bethlehem (1566)
- The Sermon of Saint John the Baptist (1566)
- The Wedding Dance (1566)
- Conversion of Paul (1567)
- The Land of Cockaigne (1567)
- The Peasant Wedding (1567)
- The Peasant Dance (c. 1567)
- The Beggars (1568)
- The Peasant and the Nest Robber (1568)
- The Blind Leading the Blind (1568)
- The Magpie on the Gallows (1568)
- The Misanthrope (1568)
- The Storm at Sea (c. 1569)
- The Painter and The Buyer (1565)
- Pieter Brueghel the Younger (son)
- Jan Brueghel the Elder (son)
- Jan Brueghel the Younger (grandson)
- Breugel, Netherlands
- Son en Breugel
- The Mill and the Cross (2011 film)
- Bruegel (crater)
- 9664 Brueghel
- Bruegel (institution)