The Land of Cockaigne (Bruegel)

The Land of Cockaigne is a arisen around 1567 paintings Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The 52 x 78 cm measured oil painting on panel is located in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.

Content

To a kind of "wishing - deck- you -type " are a knight, a peasant and a scholar. The knight with lance and iron glove resting on a pillow, the farmer sleeps on his flail and the scholar is on its fur, next to him book and paper. His eyes are open and he waits for a drop of the overturned wine jug from the round platform above him, falls into his mouth. Correspondingly, the left waits above the squire of the knight, a pancake that falls from the roof. Behind a braided from sausages fence is to identify and drive a milk pool on the ship. A roast goose is on a pewter plate and ready to eat a pig with beigegebenem knife runs about. Even the apparent cactus on the right edge is composed of bread. Behind a newcomer has just eaten by a Teigberg.

Design and interpretation

To get to the land of plenty, a candidate must eat only once a porridge or Teigberg. Is that done, so he finds himself a place where almost everything is edible. Laziness is a virtue and diligence there a sin. This design was very popular in the 16th century next to paradise narratives and stories fools. The artists presented here with the scholar, the farmer and the Knights delivered the three estates as the same lower needs and temptations. Intemperance and sloth were regarded as two of the seven deadly sins, which Bruegel dedicated a stitch sequence. Even otherwise Bruegel emphasizes the Earthbound human nature, by showing not only food intake but also excretion. Well-known examples are Peasant Wedding and The magpie on the gallows.

Bruegel stitches

Gluttony