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Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 6
Lesson 5: Antwerp, Bruges and Brussels- David, the Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor
- Gossaert, Saint Luke Painting the Madonna
- Van Orley and de Pannemaker, The Last Supper
- Pieter Aertsen, Meat Stall
- Bruegel, the Dutch Proverbs
- Bruegel, Tower of Babel
- Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow (Winter)
- Bruegel, Hunters in the Snow (Winter)
- Bruegel, Hunters in the Snow
- Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Peasant Wedding
- Reliquary bust of a companion of Saint Ursula
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Bruegel, the Dutch Proverbs
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Dutch Proverbs, 1559, oil on oak, 117 x 163 cm (Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin)
Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker
. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.Want to join the conversation?
- It would be nice to have all of the scenes discussed more fully or atleast touched on... Some are not readily discernible.(10 votes)
- Most of them are described on Wikipedia. but you habe to remember that they are old dutch proverbs and you can't translate all of them easily into english: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandish_Proverbs(15 votes)
- What are the proverbs shown at? Specifically the man holding the knife from the window, and the man on the roof shooting the crossbow? 1:50(3 votes)
- The man on the roof with the bow is shooting a second bolt to find the first, or repeating a foolish action (according to Wikipedia). Throwing good money after bad might be an English equivalent?(4 votes)
- is this like a picture of people having problems?(0 votes)
- Not necessarily about problems. It's about how to live your life.(5 votes)
- There is so much social commentary of the era in this painting! Is this a kind of caricature or social criticism? It seems that this painting portrays a king of dark irony. Also, on the bottom left corner at, is that a devil or something else? 0:46(2 votes)
- That is the devil, this proverb meant, "To be able to tie even the devil to a pillow" which meant that obstinacy overcomes everything(3 votes)
- What are some themes to this painting?(1 vote)
- Why did Beth Harris's throat sound so odd I could barely understand what she was saying : c(0 votes)
Video transcript
DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: We're in
the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin, and we're looking
at Pieter Bruegel's Netherlandish Proverbs, which
is just wonderfully fun. DR. BETH HARRIS: It
is, and it really suggests that not
all that much has changed in the last
400 or 500 years. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
It depicts well over 100 proverbs, that is,
sayings that speak to, often in a kind of humorous way,
the foibles of humanity. But it's interesting, because
it's not a condemnation. There is a sense of
almost joining in. So let's take a look at
some of these images. Not all these parables have
modern English equivalents, but some of them do. And some of the more obvious
ones in the foreground can be seen pretty clearly. On the bottom
left, you see a man who seems to be
intent on hitting his head against a brick wall. DR. BETH HARRIS: I know very
well what that feels like. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
And so of course, this is the expression hitting
your head against a wall. That is to do things
repeatedly even though you have no
chance of success. DR. BETH HARRIS:
Or how about the figure on the lower
right, who seems to be stretching his arms
toward two loaves of bread that he can barely reach. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: In
fact, he can't quite reach from one to the other. And we all know the expression
living from paycheck to paycheck. That is living
from loaf to loaf. He can't quite make ends meet. Right next to him and
just below the table, you see somebody
who's holding his head and rather upset that
he's spilled his porridge. DR. BETH HARRIS: It's useless
to cry over spilled milk. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
Right, and so he's realizing that he can't really
scoop it back in his vessel. DR. BETH HARRIS: You
know, these are all things that we do anyway. We know that they're silly. We know that they're fruitless. And we do them anyway. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: There
is just a real pleasure in moving through this
and recognizing visually what is always a kind
of auditory saying. One of my favorites, though, I
think, and one of the silliest, is showing the
pies or tarts that are being used as
roofing materials on the house on the upper left. And this is a reference
that doesn't really have an equivalent
in modern English. And it is tiling
one's house with pies, that is, just use
one's wealth in vain. At any rate, the
image as a whole creates this almost
child book-like landscape where we can wander
with our eyes, and explore, and be
delighted, and in a sense make fun of ourselves.