The Wildest Painting of Human Absurdity Ever Put on Canvas

Relishing the masterpiece that packs 126 hidden meanings

Netherlandish Proverbs (1559) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Oil on panel. 117 × 163 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany. Image source

In this wonderful, boisterous painting, a village brims with life. From a raised vantage point, we see a village full of activity; the closer you look the more the landscape swarms with rural bustle, all the way to the sun-lit ocean in the distance.

Are we looking at a festival perhaps, or a more bizarre menagerie of old-fangled folk practices?

Not quite…

It’s one of those paintings that reveals itself bit by bit, with every crowded corner filled with inventiveness — coupled with the fact that almost every element can be described in words.

Notice, for instance, the man in the lower-left who “hits his head against a brick wall” in apparent frustration.

Detail of ‘Netherlandish Proverbs’ (1559) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Oil on panel. 117 × 163 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany. Image source

And since he’s only wearing a single shoe, the old Flemish proverb “One foot shod, the other bare” might also apply — meaning that his mismatched footwear might signify an unreliable character.

Now look just above him, where on the wall a soldier holds a blade in his mouth, “armed to…