The Painting “The Proverbs” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder at first glance and at second glance and also third is a very complicated painting for the naked eye to comprehend. There is no one point in the image that portrays the main focus of the painting, it is all equally shown for the viewer to gaze upon. When looking into each scene of the painting there seems to be a common theme of violence or torture of some kind. In getting a feel for this painting you get a sense of almost excitement and curiosity as your eyes gander from one scene to the next. Not knowing whether it will depict something of simple, straightforward meaning or force you to use your mind to break down and reason what the complex scene could represent. This essay is going to include a visual representation of this painting, the true cultural and historical meaning and then a comparison of the two. The viewer can only interpret the painting as much as they allow their minds to explore the deep regions of it and come up with their own interpretation. Even though it has a true historical meaning, who’s to say a new meaning can’t be established for each individual that views the art.

One might think that visually interpreting this painting would be incredibly painstakingly difficult because of the several aspects of this painting. But instead of looking at each one of these paintings and trying to analyze every little detail and emotion why not look at the big picture? Although maybe to create meaning for this picture in oneself, a full examination of the art and its various segments is a must. Looking at this painting and interpreting it as a big picture can give a couple simple yet complicated meanings. The first thought when looking at the painting would be to look at each scene as a whole and dissect what it could mean. As a whole all the parts could be representing different scenes in a book or sections from real life historical events. A couple scenes could be possibly taken as a representation of a religious act or religious point in history maybe even sins. Expanding from that last point, consider that each one of the images in the artwork is rendering a different sin. That visual interpretation could simplify the whole meaning, because then just looking at a scene would mean finding what kind of sin is being portrayed. Going in the complete opposite direction of a big simple meaning, what if every segment had absolutely no correlation to the next segment? Like stated earlier the painting has a generally angry theme and forces the interpreter to imagine it must be examples of bad points meaning various things in time, religious or not. When looking closer at the images, a few similarities pop up and show patterns. For instance, almost no two people ae making direct eye contact and rarely are two of the same people interested in the same thing, minus a few exceptions. Several segments to the average knowledgeable viewer look absolutely bogus and put an image in your head that makes no sense and just sits there, left with no meaning or interpretation. Others can be broken down and visually have meaning to an individual, maybe some have a deeper meaning to different religious people, while it could mean nothing to the next person. The artist made the painting for the viewer to gaze upon and enjoy, only the individual can discover what it means to them.

When it comes the historical meaning of the painting it’s all facts and represents the true meaning of the painting and what it meant to the artist and what he created it to mean. When this painting was painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder it was originally named “The Blue Hood/Cloak” or “The Folly of the World”. When creating this art, the artist was depicting scenes that represented material in real images of the Dutch language. He does this by using humans and some animals and objects to depict the meaning of the scene. Each one of the scenes is a different proverb or idiom, every single one of the images on the painting represents a different proverb. For example, the image of the lady tying up the troll means in the Dutch language “To be able to tie even the devil to a pillow” (Proverbs).  Bruegel paints many of the humans with simple qualities and it shows they are fools.

When comparing the visual interpretation and the actual historical meaning of the painting they are similar in ways. In the visual interpretation it was thought that each image represented something different but all correlated to the bigger picture, this interpretation would be correct because each image is a different proverb, but they are all still proverbs. When visually interpreted the topic of sin was discussed and that ties in to the meanings of some of the proverbs. Similarly, each image represented a idiom when thought to be sin. Like interpreted, the theme was thought to be for a majority violent and absurd, while in the historical meaning the humans were supposed to be portrayed as horrid, evil, and stupid. When interpreting the image of each.

In conclusion one can visually interpret something and be gone with the wind on what it means and how it relates to them even if there is a true historical meaning its art and its created to be enjoyed by the viewer. No one ever forces someone to see a painting the way it was created for, art is only made for the individual looking at the art. So even though this painting by Bruegel had a deeper meaning, it was enjoyed for many different reasons by others.
