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Why This Mysterious Painting Still Has Experts Debating After 500 Years
A masterpiece by Bruegel unlike any other
This painting, made by Peter Bruegel the Elder in 1567, may be one of the most unusual and fascinating visions of paradise in art history.
Within the fantastical scene, roasted geese obligingly place themselves on silver platters, while pigs wander past with carving knives already strapped to their flanks, ready to serve themselves to hungry diners.
The Land of Cockaigne takes its name from a mythical realm of endless plenty — drawn from Northern European peasant folklore — where earthly pleasures exist in graspable abundance.
Art historians have long been tempted to consider the image as a warning against idleness and overconsumption. But this approach seems to me to miss some of the painting’s best and most particular qualities. It forgets to experience the image, to let one’s eye ponder the peculiar scattering of the figures, for instance, or to range over the beguiling swell of the land on which they lie.
Bruegel’s intention wasn’t to paint a cliché, but to unravel through paint a comical satire on human desire and excess, and a meditation on the cycle of life itself.
