Gustatory Wisdom: Bruegel the Elder's Twelve Proverbs (1558)

Some of the earliest surviving works of the Flemish luminary Pieter Bruegel the Elder are not his detail-rich peasant scenes that furnish art history courses the world over, but painted serving plates, or roundels. (A 1557 example was attributed to Bruegel in 2000, making it his oldest surviving genre painting, according to Elizabeth Alice Honig.) The twelve scenes here, dated to 1558, use the follies of life as pathways toward profundity — and while they may spark insight, they certainly do not whet the appetite. Another kind of digestion is at play, as the mind macerates these cryptic proverbs for moral and message. A man with his back turned pisses against a crescent moon — a commentary on time-wasting endeavors? Another fills in a well only after, the inscription tells us, his calf has drowned — a warning to take action before disaster strikes? Some of these scenes would be repeated in Bruegel’s Netherlandish Proverbs (1559). Others would inspire the next generation of Flemish arti ... Read full article.