Blog # 12

I see this painting and I see only an enigma.I’m rather partial to the word enigma. I also am attracted to segway, moribund, caveat, perfidious and vertiginous.

These words are so full of themselves. They rush forward with their meanings, trying to impress us. They are desperate to get used. Vocabiacs ? I might say that these words are onomatopoeic, but I won’t, it’s such an ugly word.

Anyway I digress. Back to the painting. An enigma. A riddle. A conundrum.

This painting is not what it seems. This painting has a sense of not being quite right. Disjointed and strange. Misleading. There are reasons why.

In the foreground a plough, steered by a rather statuesque ploughman. Seemingly relaxed, no effort here, it’s easy. However we know full well that 16th century ploughing would be extremely hard labour, especially with only one horse. Somehow we don’t see that here.

The furrows, cut and folded , gently curving, without a sod out of place, almost graphic, inorganic. And look at that foot, no self-respecting ploughman would be treading on his furrows.

The horse is not pulling, it’s strolling. It’s gently eased on by our ploughman in a startling red shirt, conspicuous, glaring, out of place? Dressed more like a prince than a ploughman. A perfect tunic, no dirt, no sweat, no holes, not a pleat out of place.

A shepherd, hardly shepherding, rather vacantly staring into the sky. The sheep free to roam, so close to the vertiginous cliff. No great future for this pastoralist as he daydreams, not a care in the world?

A sun filled Mediterranean panorama, an aquamarine sea. A ship, a barque, with a good wind behind her. The full triangular sail, a lanteen, used for sailing fast down wind. We see the crew busy managing the speed as they head towards the looming city and harbour in the vaporous distance.

And what a city, a subtle mix of pink and blue hues, so unlike the darker foreground. The painting is Dutch, part of the Netherlandish Renaissance and yet the city appears to belong to the Italian Renaissance. Hazy, ephemeral, enchanting, a place to get too, fast.

Way down in the right-hand lower corner another figure is at work. A fisherman, catching fish with a quivering rod, alone, separate, just like his fellow workers. They are absorbed in their own worlds, oblivious to what is happening around them.

So what is going on here? So many strange and weird elements. Let’s dig deeper. Look closely and we find, just above the horses head, a corpse, or maybe a dying man, largely hidden amongst the trees.

Underneath the horses legs, balancing on a rock, a bag and a sword

Scan slightly right, a sack leaning against the foreground rock, bright but partly hidden by foliage.

The painting is by Bruegel the Elder, a large painting 112 cm x 74 cm and created in about 1558. Bruegel the Elder was a leading member of the Dutch or Netherlandish Renaissance. A master of his art with a comic spirit. He was known for his depiction of peasant lives and manners and often referred to as ‘Peasant Brueghel’ We know also that he was an avid collection of proverbs, a curiosity shared by many of his fellow countrymen. Proverbs were in vogue, popular everywhere. They were profound, witty and relevant to the lives of many of the population.

In 1559 Bruegel the Elder also painted the Netherlandish Proverbs which depict 126 of the then popular Proverbs.

Swimming against the tide. . . . Banging your head against a brick wall . . . Armed to the teeth . . . . Never believe someone who carries fire in one hand and water in another . . . . The herring does not fry here . . . To crap on the world . . . The die is cast . . . To toss a feather in the wind . . . Love is on the side where the moneybag hangs.

Bruegel the Elder initially called this painting Folly of the World, intent not simply to illustrate proverbs but rather to catalogue human folly. The absurdity, the wickedness and the foolishness of his fellow humans.

Let’s look again at our original painting and it’s clandestine proverbs . . .

and the farmer ploughed on.

straying shepherds, straying sheep.

to catch a fish without a net.

no plough stops for a dying man.

sword and silver need wise hands.

what is sown on rocks cannot grow there

The idyllic and peaceful setting turns out to be a stage for a rather cynical outlook combined with an arrogant knowingness. And lest we not forget death, pride, ambition, suffering and retribution.

There is of course another very critical enigma. Look again to the fisherman, oblivious, what is he missing? Two flailing legs and a desperate hand.The title of the painting is revealing. The Fall of Icarus painted by Brueghel the Elder in 1560. Perhaps it should be called the drowning of Icarus rather than the falling since that seems to have happened already. This is Brueghel’s take on the Icarus myth. The story of a son who ignored his father’s warnings and flew too close to the sun. His beeswax wings melted and he plummeted. Near to his writhing body the now redundant feathers gently fall, a sign of Icarus’s arrogance.

And the proverb ? . . . Don’t fly too close to the sun.

Strange then that Icarus drowning is such an insignificant section of the painting. Bruegel was clearly not only a great painter, but also a wit, happy to play with our perceptions. He was obviously keen on mind games, leading us to explore and look for answers. Hiding in plain sight.

He was clearly the progenitor of the ‘Where’s Wally’ game.

Perhaps Bruegel also had a more serious purpose in mind. Everyone in the painting seems unaware of Icarus’s plight. They simply carry on with what they are doing, including the ship that must have passed so close to the ailing Icarus. Perhaps it is a lesson in hubris, a painting that highlights how tragedy and suffering can occur without people noticing. An idea that seems so relevant nowadays.

Enigmatic, yes indeed!

The story goes on . . . another enigma.

Many specialists claim that the painting was not in fact created by Bruegel the Elder. The painting we see is thought in fact to be a copy, and despite many agreeing that Brugell the Elder actually created the composition, many also agree that he did not in fact paint what we see before us.

For me this is an unimportant dilemma it remains the concern of those who value the painting not as an experience but rather of its monetary worth in the art market.

No . . . it’s the painting. . . We have before us a truly remarkable image, such a dense story, so much to explore, so much to enjoy and so much to learn.

Never regret thy fall,
oh Icarus of the fearless flight.
For the greatest tragedy of them all
is never to feel the burning light

Oscar Wilde

The Fall of Icarus can be seen in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels
The Netherlandish Proverbs can be seen in the Gemaldegalerie Berlin