The Peasant Wedding
The Peasant Wedding ( Dutch: De Boerenbruiloft ) is a painting by the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
- 4.1 Modern Popular Culture
Content and Description
The image is a realistic representation of a peasant wedding party in Flanders in the late 16th century. In contrast to his perspective in previous works Bruegel omitted here the overview, but shows the events directly from eye level. By lively crowd at the white-covered table in a large barn. Guests sit on rough wooden benches without backs, and on simple stools. On the straw wall behind the bride hangs a green cloth, on which the papery bridal crown is attached. She sits alone in the middle of the table, with downcast eyes and folded hands. You may not eat or speak. The groom can not be determined, but according to the fashion of sitting in any case not at the table. He may be the man of the wedding beer fills around on the left side into smaller jars, the ( right) but can also be a servant of the lord of the manor.
Two men wearing zoom on a wooden door filled, shallow pap. The Front is designed the largest sized figure and color with contrasting blue jacket. For him to meet the half- diagonal of the front rows of seats, the rear apron pieces of his show at the central axis. The second carries a wooden spoon in his hat and is so recognizable as migrant workers. A sitting on the front side of the panel Man offering the dishes to the guests further. In high easy chair sitting notaries, right of it has a Franciscan friar with the landlord, whose dog peeps out from under the table. For music provided by two bagpipers, one of which looks longingly at the food. In the foreground a child licks from a empty already eaten bowl. Spoons were then round ( today's oval shape came much later on ) and diameter were considered to be versatile tools, and the child wears one in the foreground.
A monk in conversation with the landlord (right margin )
The face of the bagpipers
The child in the foreground
Cut-out ( center)
Detail of the head of the table
The dog under the table
Eye-catching details
The two institutions will have something in the knee to facilitate the work of the man who passes on the plate. It is striking that the migrant workers seems to have a supernumerary leg, this dainty shoe also does not match the clumsy peasant shoe on the right foot. It looks as if the painter missed something here. The rods of the rear support are also slipped to the left so that the door would have to tilt. Whether it is error or deliberate irritation remains unclear, after all, the artist in another image, the Dutch proverbs, built a manifestly intended Error: Pancakes with which the roof is left above are not in perspective, but frontal shown.
Design and interpretation
He has come with the bride is a Flemish saying if someone does not work, even the bride was allowed on the board do any activity and not eat and speak. However, the work remains present through the straw wall and crossed sheaves with rakes. The groom is missing, because this was not allowed to be present at the wedding table traditional. The eating and drinking farmers may seem amusing, but there is some evidence that Bruegel pursued quite serious intentions. A popular biblical motif was around in the 16th century, the wedding at Cana ( 2:1-12 EU according to John ) Jesus turned water into wine at the. In such representations is not only always a Tafelgesellschaft to see, but always also a man of jars filled - as in Bruegel's picture on the left front. In addition mockery was particularly common in printing.
History
Acquired in 1594 Archduke Ernst in Brussels Peasant Wedding. Later she emigrated to Prague in the collection of Emperor Rudolf II Today it is located in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Hall 10, together with the Great Tower of Babel, children's games and the fight between Carnival and Lent. The image was cropped at an unknown date below and later added again.
Reception
There were pictures like this that Pieter Bruegel the nickname " Bauernbruegel " entered. He describes the wedding with humor, but without arrogance of the city dweller, but mediated a color picture of the life of the rural population, as in art was unknown until then.
The Flemish writer and painter Carel van Mander reported in 1604 about Bruegel's way of working:
He worked a lot for a merchant Hans Francken, who was a well respected and honest man and gladly wrong with Brueghel and got together with him daily. This Francken Brueghel often went out to the farmers to fair and wedding. Disguised as peasants, they brought gifts like the others, pretending they belonged to the clan or the country club of the bride. Here, Brueghel amused because the peasants to eat in their own way, drinking, dancing, jumping and love to watch what he understood very funny and pleasing to play in colors ...
In the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum is a copy that had Pieter Brueghel the Younger 1630 made free after the submission of his father.
The English author Sr. Wendy Beckett writes about the image:
In the famous peasant wedding that fall the rough figures, the easy faces and sometimes innocent smile, but our amusement has, as well as the Bruegel, a bitter aftertaste. These poor, plain young bride is pathetic in its brief hour of triumph, and when the guests also gulp down the meal, so there are still only modest plate of gruel or porridge. And the sparse jewelry can not hide the fact that the celebration takes place in the barn.
Modern popular culture
Link to image ( Please note copyrights )
In the comic strip Asterix in Belgium the peasant wedding appears on the cover as an art quote. The artist Albert Uderzo replaced in its parodying editing the celebrating peasants by the known from the band " Belgian " and " Gallic " cartoon characters. The original theme of the wedding, however, is missing here.