The Blind Leading the Blind

The Blind Leading the Blind is a painting by the Dutch painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The 1.54 x 0.86 meters wide tempera painting on canvas arose 1568th It can now be seen in the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples. Multiple copies of this image are known, a 118 cm x 168 cm oil painting on wood is in the Louvre in Paris.

The painting

Construction and design

The group forms a diagonal from top left to bottom right, the viewer through an abrupt termination (lower left corner ) separately. Directly behind the first blind is a sheet of water, which cuts the group of the village houses on the opposite bank - in the upper right half of the picture is a church. Bruegel situated on the sloping terrain overthrow movements in different phases represents the fifth character from the left, which is just in concept to overthrow as a fellow into the pool, turns out to be only the viewer. The presentation is so precise that it can be ascertained the cause of blindness in three of them: the third from the left suffers from a leucoma, the Fourth of Black Star and the Fifth were gouged out his eyes.

In contrast to his dance and wedding pictures Bruegel uses little color contrasts and a very reduced palette of brown and blue shades of gray.

The motif

The painting is based on the parable of the blind fall from the Bible. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says in the 15th chapter of the Pharisees, "Let them, they are blind guides. And if the blind leads the other, both shall fall into the pit. " (Mt 15,14 EU)

This design was taken up during the Renaissance of different painters and implemented differently. Bruegel it relates entirely to the time in which he lived, and interprets the religious context only at.

Background and interpretation

During the Renaissance, the blind were usually represented with closed eyes. Bruegel acted differently, he has seen his contemporaries precisely. In his world, there were many blind people, not all of it was from birth, but poor hygiene and disease did above all hers so. In a medical work of 1585 alone 113 eye diseases are mentioned; There was no healing for those affected often. And because blind people had to rely on charity, they say on the other bag were perceived lying, were many of them to the beggars who lived sickly, ragged and unkempt on the road. Accordingly, Bruegel presents his blind dar. After the Calvinist doctrine was blindness as a punishment, Whom God in misery Reserve left, who had earned it. The diagonally down-facing way the people group draws attention to the upcoming fall and the rest of the group. Over the water of the pool, on the edge of the first blind came to case depends a white Madonna lily. Lilies were a sign of purity and salvation; if it is granted the falling, Bruegel does not say.

The importance of the church in the background is controversial among art historians. Three different approaches exist, of which no one could say. Some say that the Church had no meaning, since Bruegel 'm so often integrated into his pictures. Others declare with regard to the religious background of the withered little tree in front of her (almost only a dry road ) signaling that they will be guided to the Pharisees who had become useless. A third group sees the special position engaging the church in the picture, a moral Note: You should be placed no coincidence between the two already overthrown the blind and the group of four last: From this it is clear to note that the first two lost, the other four are still to save.

Identifiable is the building as village church of St. Anna in Brussels.

Reception

• Elias Canetti are in the chapter " Samson's blinding " of the second volume of his autobiography, The Torch in the ear ( page 111), a caption of this picture, which - like the Blinding of Samson - motivic key role for his novel has the glare.

• Gert Hofmann has faced the story The Blind Leading the Blind ( Darmstadt 1985) the master image of a master narrative about the painting.