Netherlandish Proverbs

{{Short description|Painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder}}

{{redirect|Topsy Turvy World|the Rocky and Bullwinkle episodes|Topsy Turvy World (Rocky and Bullwinkle)}}

{{about|a painting by Peter Bruegel the Elder|the proverb and its influence on other art|The Blue Cloak}}

{{Infobox artwork

| image_file=Pieter Brueghel the Elder - The Dutch Proverbs - Google Art Project.jpg

| image_size=450px

| title=Netherlandish Proverbs

| artist=Pieter Bruegel the Elder

| year=1559

| medium=Oil-on-panel

| height_metric=117

| width_metric=163

| height_imperial=46

| width_imperial =64

| metric_unit=cm

| imperial_unit=in

| museum={{Lang|de|Gemäldegalerie|italic=no}}

| city=Berlin

}}

Netherlandish Proverbs ({{langx|nl|Nederlandse Spreekwoorden}}; also called Flemish Proverbs, The Blue Cloak or The Topsy Turvy World) is a 1559 oil-on-oak-panel painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder that depicts a scene in which humans and, to a lesser extent, animals and objects, offer literal illustrations of Dutch-language proverbs and idioms.

Running themes in Bruegel's paintings that appear in Netherlandish Proverbs are the absurdity, wickedness and foolishness of humans. Its original title, The Blue Cloak or The Folly of the World, indicates that Bruegel's intent was not just to illustrate proverbs, but rather to catalogue human folly. Many of the people depicted show the characteristic blank features that Bruegel used to portray fools.{{cite web|title=Pieter Bruegel|url=http://www.aparences.net/periodes/la-renaissance-nordique/pieter-bruegel/|publisher=APARENCES|access-date=11 August 2013}}

His son, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, specialised in making copies of his father's work and painted at least 16 copies of Netherlandish Proverbs.{{cite web|last=Wisse|first=Jacob|title=Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1525/30–1569)|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/brue/hd_brue.htm|work=Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|access-date=11 August 2013}} Not all versions of the painting, by father or son, show exactly the same proverbs and they also differ in other minor details. The original work by Bruegel the Elder is in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin,{{Cite web |title=Die niederländischen Sprichwörter |url=https://recherche.smb.museum/detail/867614/die-niederl%C3%A4ndischen-sprichw%C3%B6rter |access-date=2024-04-23 |website=Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin State Museums)}} with the copies in numerous other collections (see below).

History

=Context=

Proverbs were very popular in Bruegel's time and before; a hundred years before Bruegel's painting, illustrations of proverbs had been popular in the Flemish books of hours.{{cite book |last=Rudy |first=Kathryn M. |title=Manuscripten en miniaturen: Studies aangeboden aan Anne S. Korteweg bij haar afscheid van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek |editor-last=Biemans |editor-first=Jos |year=2007 |publisher=Walburg|location=Zutphen|isbn=9789057304712|url=https://www.academia.edu/636397|chapter=Bruegel’s Netherlandish Proverbs and the Borders of a Flemish Book of Hours|display-editors=etal}} A number of collections were published, including Adagia, by the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus.{{cite book|last=Erasmus|first=Desiderius|author-link=Desiderius Erasmus|title=Adagia|publisher=Department of Dutch language and literature|location=University of Leiden|url=http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Latijn/ErasmusAdagia.html|edition=Leiden 1700}} The French writer François Rabelais employed significant numbers in his novel Gargantua and Pantagruel, completed in 1564.{{cite journal|last=O'Kane|first=Eleanor|title=The Proverb: Rabelais and Cervantes|journal=Comparative Literature|year=1950|volume=2|issue=4|pages=360–369|jstor=1768392|doi=10.2307/1768392}}

The Flemish artist Frans Hogenberg made an engraving illustrating 43 proverbs in around 1558, roughly the same time as Bruegel's painting.{{cite journal|last=Lebeer|first=L.|title=De Blauwe Huyck|journal=Gentsche Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis|year=1939–40|volume=6|pages=161–229}} The work is very similar in composition to Bruegel's and includes certain proverbs (like the Blue Cloak) which also feature prominently in Netherlandish Proverbs.{{cite web|title=Die blau huicke is dit meest ghenaemt / Maer des weerelts abuisen het beter betaempt|url=http://www.teeuwisse.de/catalogues/selected-prints-vii/die-blau-huicke-is-dit-meest-ghenaemt-maer-des-weerelts-abuisen-het-beter-betaempt.html|work=Prints|publisher=Nicolaas Teeuwisse|access-date=11 August 2013}} By depicting literal renditions of proverbs in a peasant setting, both artists have shown a "world turned upside down".

Bruegel himself had produced several works, mostly prints and drawings, on the subject of proverbs including Big Fish Eat Little Fish (1556) and Twelve Proverbs (1558), but Netherlandish Proverbs is thought to have been his first large-scale painting on the theme.

The painting

The painting, dated 1559, is considered the best of a series of similar paintings which at one time or other have all previously been attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, has been x-rayed for its underdrawing to compare it to other versions. None of the versions have a provenance going back further than the late 19th century, but Bruegel scholars believe that the paintings are the elder Bruegel's inventions, which all make use of a life-size cartoon with the same underdrawing as that used in the Berlin version.[https://hnanews.org/hnar/reviews/brueghel-enterprises/ Breughel Enterprises], 2001-2002 exhibition on the work of Pieter Brueghel II's copies after his father's works, Historians of Netherlandish Art review The paintings, which are not inscribed, tease the viewer into guessing proverbs. They are based on 1558 and earlier engravings that are inscribed, in Flemish. The most notable of these regarding the paintings is by Frans Hogenberg, and it is dated 1558 and accompanied by the title Die blau huicke is dit meest ghenaemt, maer des weerelts abvisen he beter betaempt (English: Often called 'The Blue Cloak', this could better be called 'The World's Follies'). The Doetecum brothers produced a print series in 1577 called De Blauwe Huyck. Theodoor Galle also made a print, dated later, with a similar title: Dese wtbeeldinghe wort die blauw hvyck genaemt, maer deze werelts abvysen haer beter betaemt.C. C. Barfoot and Richard Todd, The Great Emporium: the Low Countries as a cultural crossroads in the Renaissance and the eighteenth century (1992), p. 128; [https://books.google.com/books?id=6Efwrjmp9iwC&pg=PA128 Google Books].

Proverbs and idioms

Critics have praised the composition for its ordered portrayal and integrated scene. There are approximately 126 identifiable proverbs and idioms in the scene, although Bruegel may have included others which cannot be determined because of the language change. Some of those incorporated in the painting are still in popular use, for instance "Swimming against the tide", "Banging one's head against a brick wall" and "Armed to the teeth". Many more have faded from use, which makes analysis of the painting harder. "Having one's roof tiled with tarts", for example, which meant to have an abundance of everything and was an image Bruegel would later feature in his painting of the idyllic Land of Cockaigne (1567).

The Blue Cloak, the piece's original title, features in the centre of the piece and is being placed on a man by his wife, indicating that she is cuckolding him. Other proverbs indicate human foolishness. A man fills in a pond after his calf has died. Just above the central figure of the blue-cloaked man, another man carries daylight in a basket. Some of the figures seem to represent more than one figure of speech (whether this was Bruegel's intention or not is unknown), such as the man shearing a sheep in the centre bottom left of the picture. He is sitting next to a man shearing a pig, so represents the expression "One shears sheep and one shears pigs", meaning that one has the advantage over the other, but may also represent the advice "Shear them but don't skin them", meaning make the most of available assets.

Inspiration for other paintings

T. E. Breitenbach's 1975 painting Proverbidioms was inspired by this Dutch painting to depict English proverbs and idioms.

A 2014 illustration from the Hong Kong magazine Passion Times illustrates dozens of Cantonese proverbs.{{cite web|url=http://www.passiontimes.hk/article/02-24-2014/8899/|title=熱血時報 - 大粵港諺語 - 阿塗 - 專欄部落|work=passiontimes.hk}}{{cite web|url=https://writecantonese8.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/cantonese-proverbs-in-one-picture/|title=Cantonese Proverbs in One Picture|work=廣府話小研究Cantonese Resources|date=25 February 2014 }}

Gallery

File:Pieter Brueghel the Elder - The Dutch Proverbs - Google Art Project.jpg|Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

File:Breughel proverbs.jpg|Rockox House, Antwerp

File:Pieter Brueghel II - The Netherlandish Proverbs 2018 CKS 15496 0007.jpg|Private collection

File:WLANL - legalizefreedom - Spreekwoorden.jpg|Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem

File:Pieter Bruegel de Oude - Vlaamse spreekwoorden 08873.jpg|Noord Brabantsmuseum, Den Bosch

File:Pieter Brueghel the Younger - Flemish Proverbs.jpg|Stedelijk Museum Wuyts-Van Campen en Baron Caroly, Lier

See also

Notes

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=Footnotes=

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References

  • {{cite book|title=Bruegel: The Complete Paintings|last=Hagen|first=Rainer|editor=Hagen, Rose-Marie|publisher=Taschen|year=2000|isbn=3822859915}}
  • {{cite book|last=De Rynck|first=Patrick|title=How to Read a Painting: Lessons from the Old Masters|publisher=Abrams|location=New York|year=1963|isbn=0810955768}}
  • {{cite web|url=http://www.uvm.edu/~fleming/index.php?category=exhibitions&page=netherlandish|title=The Netherlandish Proverbs by Pieter Brueghel the Younger|publisher=Fleming Museum, University of Vermont|year=2004|access-date=18 May 2007}} not found 6 Nov. 2022
  • {{cite journal|last=Mieder|first=Wolfgang|author-link=Wolfgang Mieder|title=The Netherlandish Proverbs: An International Symposium on the Pieter Brueg(h)els|journal=University of Vermont|year=2004}}
  • Dundes, Alan and Claudia A. Stibbe (1981). The Art of Mixing Metaphors: A Folkloristic Interpretation of the Netherlandish Proverbs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia Academia Scientiarum Fennica. {{ISBN|9514104242}}.

Further reading

  • {{Cite book|title=Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints|url=http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15324coll10/id/97318|editor-last=Orenstein|editor-first=Nadine M. |year=2001|publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art|isbn=978-0-870-9-99901}}