“Patience” is the “plus one” referred to above. It is placed first in the following section, for though it is quite clearly a “virtuous” subject, it is nevertheless not part of the subsequent series of Seven Virtues. In terms of its devil-drenched treatment, its date (1557), and its engraver (van der Heyden), it conforms to the pattern set by the earlier Sins, already presented.
“Patience,” we may assume, was a sort of transition between the seven Sins and the seven Virtues. One may speculate in this way: after the Sins were successfully completed, Publisher Cock suggested that Bruegel design something similar, representing, perhaps, the “other side” of the ethical struggle; hence “Patience,” which was given to the same engraver to put on a copperplate. However—and here we continue to conjecture—the patrons of Aux Quatre Vents wanted still more. What more natural then than to launch the full series of seven Virtues?
Whatever the story lost in unrecorded history, Bruegel in 1559 and 1560 made the seven Virtue drawings. These originals, it is good to record, are all preserved in our own day in the collections or museums indicated in the following comments. The engraver was not van der Heyden but, in all probability, Philippe Galle, most subtle and resourceful of the engravers who worked from Bruegel origjnals during the master’s lifetime.
These seven subjects are sometimes called The Seven Cardinal Virtues as counterparts or opposite numbers to The Seven Deadly Sins. Quite strictly speaking, this is not correct. Actually, the Virtues fall into two groups: the three “theological” virtues and the four “cardinal” virtues. Faith, Hope, and Charity are the “theologicals,” so called because they were set forth in the New Testament, and so can be considered to have come direct from God through his spokesman. The medieval fixation on numerology and symmetry, however, demanded there be seven virtues as well as seven sins. So the “cardinals” were added. They differ somewhat depending on what list is consulted. However, as drawn by Bruegel they comprise Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance.
How does Bruegel approach the Virtues, graphically?
Formally, his original drawings are here similar to those for the Sins. The allegorical female is prominently situated at front center; she is surrounded sides and back by groups and individuals illustrating in action the named quality or virtue. A motto engraved below sets forth the “official position” of the engraving—or its publisher—with respect to the moral sentiment to be absorbed by the viewer.
Yet there is a fundamental difference here, as previously hinted. Excepting only the special case of “Fortitude,” none of the seven Virtues includes devils in its cast of characters. The macabre is missing. No nightmare monsters, no delirium tremens composites, no animated impossibilities counter to anatomy, morphology, and observation.
Instead, the six Virtues soberly and painstakingly picture situations which may—to modern eyes—seem drastic or deplorable; yet the actors are all “normal” men, women, and children; and their actions, though unnaturally juxtaposed, are not “out of this world.”
How did Bruegel conceive these Virtues, psychologically?
The answer cannot be quite as simple as one might wish. Bruegel lived in a period far from simple or placid; and he was obviously not one of its simpler spirits. Hence, in his Virtues, as in so many other engravings, ambiguity of meaning may walk hand in hand with mastery of means.
See especially such subjects as “Faith” and “Justice.” “Faith” shows slavish, superficial church ceremonials, heavy and uninspired rituals, a creed seemingly imposed from outside. Participants appear to lack sense of communion and uplift. “Justice” is replete with legalistic tortures and punishments. They deserve to be described as both cruel and unusual from a present-day viewpoint (if one can conveniently overlook what was done by the Germans during the days of Nazi rule, and forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also). Sadism seems to run rampant, systematized and administered by an elaborate state establishment.
Are these pictures then intended as travesties? Did Bruegel seek to satirize the emptiness of Faith within the Church, the mercilessness and savagery of Justice within the State? Tolnay thought so. His reading, especially of the two subjects just cited, seemed for some time quite convincing to the present writer. Consequently, there seemed little merit in the views of Adriaan Barnouw, who sees the Virtues as illustrations of their titles—composites of human actions or attitudes which were both necessary and commendable.
Restudy of the engravings and their critics, in the preparation of this book, led to a view somewhat midway between Tolnay’s and Barnouw’s. Again Grossmann and Stridbeck’s writing contributed to a sort of synthesis. It seems now that the Virtues must be conceived neither as harsh satires, nor as representations in which all that occurs is divinely and utterly right.
For example, with “Faith”:
In the same composition we see around the allegorical figure the mementoes and symbols of the Passion of Jesus. These, undoubtedly, represented to Bruegel a true and valid Faith. It would be difficult to assume as much for the figures of the priests as he has drawn them, performing the marriage and preaching to the congregation, etc. Yet it is not needful to assume that this engraving was essentially an open or disguised attack on the Church of that time. Coornhert—already referred to—and other “Spiritualists” and “Libertines” of that era—took a rather dim view of the Church and of all forms of creedal organization. Though he did not break openly with the Church, he was “tolerant” or indifferent toward it. Sacraments of the Church, he held, were all right for those who wanted them, but certainly not essential. In practice, he recognized solely the authority of the Gospels, whose climax is the Passion story represented in the center of the engraving. What really mattered was the inner relationship between a man and God, between a man and God’s message incorporated in the Gospels—and this relationship could not be mediated or assured by any “third party,” not even by the priesthood and hierarchy of the Church. Coornhert was called “a Catholic but no Papist.”
Bruegel cannot be conceived of as flouting or mocking Faith itself, even when he graphically portrays what must be considered a “dim view” of the formal observances of the Church. And similarly, he does not sneer at the ideal of Justice, even when depicting its utmost rigors.
In the discussions which follow of the individual Virtues, the viewpoint may not be completely consistent throughout. The engravings themselves, rather than any suggested commentary, must in any case take precedence.
No original drawing survives.
The engraving, dated 1557, is by van der Heyden, published by Cock.
This print stands alone, yet is related both to the Sins which precede it in this book, and to the Virtues which follow. Like the seven Sins, it makes use of diabolical, monstrous, and fantastic creatures; yet the subject, Patience, manifestly is not a vice, but a virtue—even if not one of the seven cardinal virtues.
Patience is seated, in the customary place in the center foreground. She is drawn somewhat smaller in proportion to the entire composition than the allegorical figures in the Sins series. She has no symbolic animal near her.
Seated upon a block of stone to which she is shackled, Patience clasps her hands in prayer, holding a cross. She raises her eyes to the sky as if to say: “Heaven, give me patience to endure all this.”
And indeed she has much to be patient about. The scene is alive with trials and menaces. It is crowded with symbols and charades indicating the evils that beset the patient person. In a sense, Patience is assailed by trials deriving from most if not all of the seven Sins. In this respect, and in the general organization of the composition, this print may be compared with the “Temptation of St. Anthony,” reproduced as Plate 59.
Enormous, at upper left, looms the fantastic egg-man, a multiple monster. Various symbolisms combine here. The rider wears the garb and hat of a cardinal. A dead tree grows out of his back. His legs project through the empty eggshell which signifies folly, or its equivalent, sinfulness. The egg itself has a head, which is on fire. As this steed crawls on all fours, its posterior has been broken open. A crowd of men, with ladder and huge knife, are crawling inside.
Both are hollow—that is to say, rotten, empty, void, sinful—the egg-man who serves as horse, and the tree-man who acts as his rider.
The keys of Saint Peter, symbol of Papal authority, decorate the cardinal’s hat. Into his belt is stuffed a Papal document—probably an indulgence. It is difficult for this writer to read this dominant double monster as anything but a drastic attack upon the state of the Church of Rome. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to name it as the Church of the hated Spanish rulers of the Netherlands.
The cardinal-monster gazes out, away from the burning church at the left. Fish-monsters fly and plunge in the sky above. Below, a loathsome toad tries to crawl up the side of the egg-horse.
Near the right rear foot of that creature, a demon beast has downed and is devouring a soldier, whose crossbow lies on the ground. Another crossbow lies useless on the bank at the left.
The water is crowded with diabolical craft and conflict. A strange fish-boat has hoofs or swimmerets instead of oars like a galley. Nearer, a marine jousting contest on a duck and fish results in the fighter at the left poking his lance into the posterior of the one at the right. Farther left, a man with abdomen bloated to balloonlike shape floats near the bank, a bird perched on his belly-button, and a monk holding above him a switch of dry twigs. Still farther left, on a horse, an idiot town crier or scholar reads from a document in his hand. His horn hangs about his neck.
Obviously souls in need of succor are not getting it.
Also in the water, a man drowns. Not far from him, on a raft, floats a monkey-monster who balances a lute with its feet, while exposing its anus and genitals. It is a first cousin to the exhibitionist monkey seen in the “Lust” print.
On the bank nearer to Patience herself are figures which may well refer to symbols already seen in the “Anger” print. A fat monster (Gluttony?) feeds a bird perched on the bent back of a one-legged knight, whose spiked shield is assailed by a sword-bearing monster with a long beak. They may well refer to Anger or strife of some sort.
Looking past other enormities, we find at the lower right a great fish, cut open. A demon peers out of the dark belly. On top, a dog steals wine from a table which bears a knife. (Reference to Gluttony?)
The inevitable hollow, dead tree is crowded with symbols of sin from rotten roots to twisted tip. A dance of men and demons goes on below, the fiddler projecting at the left side of the tree.
Jugs are mounted a little higher (perhaps Gluttony again). And on a round platform near the top occurs some lofty Lechery, as the lutanist entertains a lovely court lady at the left, and a drinker taps a barrel at the right.
The owl higher up looks mysterious and a little silly, also as usual.
Near the foot of the tree, at the right, a bird is roasted on a smoking spit, while a winged demon reaches round the screen. This diabolical reaching around or reaching out from a concealment occurs more than once in Bruegel’s infernal fantasies. It bears comparison with his penchant for completely or partially concealing facial features or the entire heads of human characters. After all, nothing is quite so sinister as the obscure; nothing so hauntingly horrible as the hidden; nothing so suggestive as the incomplete.
Farther back on the bank, a bird-monk walks carrying a harp, and just over the hill a demon tolls a bell.
On the water at the right another nightmare galley is rowed by out-growing swimmerets. The vessel has a domelike canopy or deckhouse, and seems to tow a rowboat containing a horse.
Still farther back, the sun sets on this entire riot of sin and folly. But the allegorical lady still sits on, like Patience on a monument, looking upward for strength, if not succor.
Translation of Latin caption: Patience is the tranquil endurance of evils that assail you through malice or through accident (from Book 5 of the Institutiones Divinae of Lactantius).
The original drawing in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, is signed “BRUEGEL” and dated 1559 by a hand not Bruegel’s.
The Latin motto at the bottom affirms: “Faith above all is to be preserved, particularly with respect to religion, for God comes before, and is more mighty than, man.”
Faith, garbed like a nun, stands on the lid of the open tomb which contained the body of Jesus. All around her are the objects named in the Gospel story of the crucifixion of Jesus. On her head are the tablets of the Law of Moses, indicative of the Old Testament. In her hands she holds, and points to a passage in, a volume of the New. Faith personified thus symbolizes the Gospel message, which Coornhert and the “Spiritualists” held to be all-important, as against the essential unimportance of the forms and ceremonies of a creed.
“The rest of the scene,” Ebria Feinblatt notes, “is held to be rather a satire on churchly cult, or outward ceremony, as Bruegel, in keeping with the Libertinism, or Spiritualism, of his time, stressed the need for personal and direct communion between man and God, without intervention of the church.”
Back of Faith the sacraments or outward ceremonies are shown, in the interior of a great church that stretches far behind.
At the upper left a child is baptized. Closer, still at the left, communion takes place at the altar. The priest extends a wafer to an open-mouthed communicant. Nearer still, a wedding is performed. In the background just left of center, a confession takes place, At the right, in the church nave, a congregation sits listening to a sermon.
Images abound in this church. Tolnay points out that “on every pillar there is, if possible, a religious statue or devotional picture, and at the altar . . . the donor and his wife have also had themselves immortalized by small statues.”
The seeming apathy of the congregation is emphasized by the same critic: they are “heavily bundled up, each one withdrawn into his own snail-shell.” Individuals are observed—“One man yawns, another has fallen asleep, one woman grins: the Word passes by.”
Turning to the original drawing for the scene of the sacrament of marriage—in face and figure the priest appears gross and coarse. Some of the wedding party look stupid and vulgar. The engraver has made them appear slimmer, more dignified. In the original drawing there is far more of caricature in the faces of the women listening to the sermon, than in the engraving as shown by the print. The engraving, whether purposely or otherwise, has watered down the element of discrepancy between the purposes and the realities of the church observances.
Faith herself bears on her shoulder a haloed phoenix, symbol of resurrection from death.
With utmost devotion to detail and complete knowledge of the Gospel story, Bruegel has placed around Faith every relevant object identified with the crucifixion. The cross itself stands behind her; against it lean the ladder and the spears of the Roman soldiers. The thorn crown and the veil with the imprint of Jesus’ face are there also.
In the foreground from left to right are the whipping post and lashes, the rooster who crowed for the disciple Peter, the basin in which Pilate washed his hands, the seamless cloak and the dice with which the soldiers cast for it. On the tomb are the ointment flasks of the Marys, the hammer used in the crucifixion, and even (alongside) Judas Iscariot’s thirty pieces of silver, scattered upon the floor.
The immediacy of the dramatic story symbolized here suggests a different and more basic kind of Faith than the formal observances in the church environment elsewhere in the print.
The original drawing, in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, is signed “Bruegel” and dated 1559.
The allegorical figure, Hope, stands on a large anchor on a raging “sea of troubles.” She holds in one hand a spade, in the other a scythe; a tall beehive serves as her headgear. These are tools used by men whose work is especially subject to risk, and whose hearts are hence filled with hope for a favourable outcome—the peasant (farmer) and the sailor or fisherman.
These tools were the special symbols of Hope as depicted in medieval allegories, Stridbeck points out. Hence Bruegel reached back to symbols traditional long before his time.
The Latin motto below the picture sets the tone for the whole: “The assurance that hope gives us is most pleasant and most essential to an existence amid so many nearly insupportable woes.”
The face of Hope in the original drawing wears a smile that fits well the thought of a “most sweet message.” The engraving, however, gives her an expression far less comforting and less “involved” with the fate of the poor human hopers.
On sea and land a multitude of “almost insupportable woes” are taking place. The storm-lashed sea wrecks a ship at the right. One sailor, already overboard and riding a plank, stares into the open jaws of the fish who swims up to swallow him. Another castaway, on a segment of broken mast, floats to the left of Hope. He hopes to survive somehow. Still another struggles unaided, somewhat to the right of the beehive hat. He stretches his arm toward the seawall, which he hopes to reach alive.
The foundering boat at the lower right has three despairing sailors still aboard, and another who clings exhausted to the gunwale near the prow. Fear makes the hair stand out on the heads of the sailors in the prow and of one who clutches the stump of the shattered mast. A man between them raises his hands toward heaven in hope of miraculous aid.
In another wrecked boat farther back, a sole survivor shinnies up the breaking mast, while a great whale or pike leaps out of the water to get him.
Beyond that, the storm wrecks a far larger vessel—a carrack or galleon like those we have seen in the series of stately ship prints reproduced in previous pages. The mainmast has broken and a couple of sailors have taken to a rowboat. They hope to make their getaway alive.
A prison tower or donjon keep stands at left. Inside, below, prisoners sit shackled and locked in stocks. They hope and pray for release. In the window above faces of two prisoners are seen. (The original drawing shows four faces there). A bottle or pitcher hangs by a cord from this window.
A hooded falcon is perched on a prison window below. Barnouw writes that he “stands hopefully waiting for the lifting of his hood.”
To the right, a pregnant woman stands praying on the seawall, probably for the safety of her husband and the welfare of her child to come. Next to her is that most hopeful of mortals, a fisherman. He supports his hopes by using three rods and lines at a time.
A house is ablaze at the upper left. The local bucket and ladder brigade seek to douse it with whatever water they can bring up. They hope to put out the fire before all is lost.
In the background, right of center, labor men whose futures depend almost wholly on realization of their hopes—tillers of the soil. And in the sky at the right the crescent moon shines. A dozen sailing vessels of various sizes ply the sea at the horizon. Each carries its cargo of men’s hopes.
At first sight this print may seem an instance of bitter irony: Hope stands blandly, calmly, holding her symbols, while behind her men suffer all manner of catastrophe, loss, and misery. Yet it is clear that to Bruegel and the ethical point of view he represented graphically, Hope was what gave men strength to hang on somehow “amid so many nearly insupportable woes.” One hopes that despite the disaster one will come through somehow.
Without the woe—imminent or eventuated—what would be the meaning of hope? There has to be something one hopes to overcome or survive or get away from.
The allegory here does not identify Hope with selfish ambitions or unsanctified aims of men. This is not the hope of a man who wants most awfully to succeed in snatching another’s purse, seducing his neighbor’s wife, or quickly acquiring a royal title. It is the Hope that somehow supports existence amid seemingly insupportable woes, and the more terrible the trials, the greater the hope needed to survive them.
At wit’s end perhaps all will be lost “save hope.”
The hope of this print seems a sort of opposite or antidote to despair, the sometimes tempting surrender to hopelessness. Despair and hope are confronted in the opening lines of Gerard Manley Hopkin’s great poem, “Carrion Comfort”:
Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
So even in the ultimate extremities, the men in this picture “can something, hope.”
Plate 49 is reproduced by permission of Mr. and Mrs. Jake Zeitlin, Los Angeles, California.
The original drawing, in the Boymans Museum, Rotterdam, is signed “Bruegel” and dated 1559.
The charity with which this print is concerned has the original, basic meaning of active benevolence: love of one’s fellow men as manifested in practical acts, or good works. The years have overlaid very different connotations on our word charity. To many it means now merely a matter of “picking up the tab” for a handout to somebody who is said to need it. Even that composite word philanthropy, which meant the love of men or mankind, has become for most indistinguishable from alms-giving; and the adjectives charitable and philanthropic do duty that might better be reserved for that formidable polysyllable eleemosynary.
The allegorical figure of Charity here is a woman whose face bespeaks kindness and consideration. The warm humanity in her expression comes through even more effectively in the original drawing. She holds in her hand a heart aflame (a contrast to the allegorical figure for the sin of Envy who eats her heart out).
On the head of Charity stands a symbolic bird with two young. This is identified by Barnouw as the pelican “who feeds her starving young with her heart’s blood.” (The bird here in fact lacks the typical pelican beak, but its posture fully confirms this reading.) The pelican symbolized altruism.
Not aloof from the surrounding scene, Charity is holding the hand of a small child. Her contact with the children exemplifies the message of Jesus (Luke 9:48): “Whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me.” A garland, not readily visible in the print, crowns the head of charity—probably a wreath of olive which here symbolizes, not victory in competition, but peaceful love of one’s neighbors.
The good works of charity are going on all around her. At left, foreground, the hungry are fed; at right the naked are clothed. The half-starved eagerness of those who receive bread leaves no doubt as to their need for it. A house wall is removed at upper right, so we may see the visiting of the sick and infirm. In the house just to the left of this, a pair of pilgrims with their identifying staves are greeted hospitably. They will no doubt be lodged and fed before proceeding on their salutary journey.
In the far distance at the center, a burial takes place in consecrated ground next to the church. The coffin is lowered into the grave by two men, the only participants in the ceremony. Next to the open grave lies a sign or placard which will probably serve in lieu of a headstone or monument.
In the extreme upper left, before the wall of a prison, we may see a man and woman come to bring comfort even to the prisoners pent in the stocks. The visiting man shakes the prisoner’s hand in a gesture of human fellowship.
Below the prison, drink is being given to the poor and crippled from great barrels. Most of them drink out of bowls. Because of the approach of a small boy from the right, we may trust that milk, or possibly beer—rather than wine—is dispensed here.
All the traditional “Seven Works of Compassion, or Charity” are represented here: (1) feeding the hungry, (2) giving drink to the thirsty, (3) clothing the naked, (4 & 5) visiting prisoners and the sick, (6) giving hospitality to the homeless, (7) burying the dead.
Near Bruegel’s name in the lower right corner, two objects lie as if accidentally left there. One is a belt, another an empty bowl. In the corresponding part of the original drawing there is also a third object—a bundle of twigs, such as might be used for punishment. These objects, according to Stridbeck, had a relevant symbolism: the beggar’s bowl—poverty; the belt—asceticism and self-deprivation; and the lash of twigs or branches—discipline, pain, suffering, etc. It is thus probably worth mention that the third object was left out by the engraver, and so is missing from the print.
Translation of Latin quotation: “Expect that what is befalling others will befall you; you will be aroused to render aid only if you make your own the feelings of the man who cries for help in the midst of adversity.”
The original drawing, in the Royal Library, Brussels, is signed “Bruegel” and dated 1559.
This print is a social document as well as a work of art. It merits examination by sociologists, penologists, law enforcement authorities, and responsible citizens, whether or not they consider themselves art-lovers. Given the close study it deserves, it is likely to lead to shudders and revulsion, for to modern eyes this may appear a festival of sadism. To paraphrase Madame Rolland’s outcry: “O Justice, what crimes are committed in thy name!”
This writer for some time considered it to be essentially a satire or travesty on what passed for justice in the Netherlands of the latter sixteenth century, but such an interpretation now seems oversimplified. The picture seems to be, rather, a serious summary, by means of allegory and representative incidents, of grim but not reprehensible social practices. Barnouw comments, “No age ever knew itself inhuman or cruel in administering justice.” Such knowledge, and the protest it motivates, came always, and comes still, from a small, but saving, minority.
A further age may draw away in distaste from records of hanging, electrocution, and the gas chamber as perpetrated in the name of justice among us, some four centuries after Bruegel drew this allegory of Justice. (Unless, to be sure, the most monstrous bestiality of all—nuclear annihilation—does away with us and the future too.)
The Latin motto underneath sets the sober, sombre tone of the engraving: “The aim of law is either through punishment to correct him who is punished, or to improve the others by his example, or to protect the generality (society) by overcoming the evil.”
The allegorical figure of Justice is a young woman with covered eyes, bearing in one hand a sword, in the other a pair of scales. She is not blind in the sense that a disgusted baseball fan intends when he accuses an umpire of blindness; her eyes are covered so that she shall judge without regard to the individual before her.
She stands on a block with a ring for shackling prisoners. A set of shackles lies below it.
At the left front, a prisoner is being put to the torture: he is stretched on a rack, and his feet are drawn out by a drum turned by the torturer at that end. Above him another executioner holds a flaming torch so that fiery pitch drops down on the victim’s limbs. Adriaan Barnouw has written concerning executioners and judges all through this picture: “No one takes pleasure in the scene.” Yet in the original drawings, this writer finds, the torch-bearer’s face expresses a sort of brooding sadism, quite different from the effect in the engraving. (Again, an engraver’s change which blunts the point and dulls the edge of more drastic effects in the working drawing.)
Two men pour water through a funnel into the mouth of the victim on the rack. Some critics see this as an act of mercy. The quantity of water and the swollen belly of the victim indicate rather that this is part of the notorious water torture.
By treatments of this sort the suspected criminal was induced to confess—that is, to testify against himself. Only those who had confessed were condemned to death. (Sometimes death terminated the torture, but this was regarded as “one of those things,” rather than as evidence of a defect in the system.)
At farthest left stands a sixteenth-century “shorthand reporter,” ready to take down the confession. The “examining magistrate” stands over him, holding upright a thorny stick. This is probably a symbol of his office rather than a tool which he uses to encourage the suspect to confess.
At the right front we see a solemn court scene. The magistrate there also holds a thorny stick. He is reading the sentence to be imposed on the convicted criminals who stand before his table. It will be death, for they have been given crucifixes to hold.
Court clerks note down everything in good legal order. (One recalls somehow the detailed, almost compulsive, record-keeping of the Nazis, large and small, in their programs of extermination of millions of men, women, and children. Everything neat, complete, and utterly final. Sadism, perhaps—but system, always. After all—Ordnung muss sein!)
In the middle distance at the left, the bearded executioner raises his sword while the condemned man kneels, bowing over a crucifix his head which will soon roll on the sand below. A priest at safe distance from blood pronounces a benediction.
Farther back, a criminal chained to a post is lashed with sharp bundles of branches. A goodly crowd is there as audience.
Somewhat to the right, a man is tortured by hanging, tied by the heels and wrists. Several well-dressed aristocrats, in fine cloaks and swords, look on.
Still farther right, inside an archway, a prisoner’s right hand is being chopped off. Afterwards the same operation will be performed on another, who is being dragged to the butcher block by guards. This is probably a punishment for theft.
In the farther distance, against the sky, stand gallows, from which hang four corpses; also four of the horrible high wheels which Bruegel included in so many of his paintings and drawings of landscapes, based on what he saw in the Netherlands. Broken bodies of victims can be seen on three of them.
One concluding detail appears at the extreme upper left. In the words of Barnouw, it is “the Cross of Christ,” which “rises above this scene of woe as a guarantee that justice thus administered has the sanction of the Supreme Judge. For its aim is not revenge but the improvement and protection of society.”
A suitable commentary might be reserved for a writer like the Mark Twain of Connecticut Yankee, were such a one among us today.
Plate 51 is reproduced by permission of Mr. and Mrs. Jake Zeitlin, Los Angeles, California.
The original drawing, in the Royal Museum, Brussels, is signed “Brueghel” and dated 1559.
The original was quite likely one of the earliest finished of Bruegel’s Virtues drawings, for it is the only one of the seven in which his signature is spelled with the “H.” At about this time he went over to the simpler spelling “Bruegel,” which he used thenceforward on all drawings and paintings signed by his own hand.
Prudence occupied a special place of honour. It was regarded as the first and most important among the four “cardinal” or non-theological virtues. Prudence, it should be understood, was not merely caution or circumspection; it was wisdom, good sense, the applied ability to distinguish between good and bad and to guide action accordingly. It was foresight in the service of virtue.
The Latin motto indicates something of the scope and special standing of Prudence: “If you wish to be prudent, think always of the future, and weigh all conceivable outcomes (contingencies).”
According to Coornhert, prudence was the prerequisite for a good life—that is, a life of goodness. This is what he had in mind when he wrote regarding wisdom: “Is there anything more worth men’s striving than wisdom? . . . Wisdom is the sole mistress who can lead men to the right use of wealth, health, life itself, and also the other virtues; for without wisdom all other virtues are blind. . . . Thanks to wisdom, the wise man knows how to avoid the broad path of sin; it helps him to choose the right, straight way which leads to a virtuous life.”
The allegorical figure of Prudence stands on, under, and next to objects symbolizing various kinds of such desirable wisdom: On her head she carries a sieve or colander; in her hand she holds a mirror; against her shoulder leans a long slender coffin. Each of these objects suggests a different aspect of prudence: the sieve or colander—the sifting out of good from evil, rejecting the bad, retaining that which makes for a life of virtue; the coffin—the inevitable death that awaits all men, in awareness of which they should live each day prudently; the mirror—self-knowledge.
A moral writer named Ripa, influential in the intellectual circles around Bruegel, wrote regarding the symbolism of the mirror: “Looking into a mirror represents learning to know one’s self, for no one who is unaware of his own failings can judge soundly regarding his affairs.”
Prudence stands on a ladder which lies on the ground. Nearby are scattered hooks and buckets. Obviously these are pieces of fire-fighting apparatus. And fire-fighting has a special symbolic meaning: for human passions are like conflagrations, raging and destroying; thus, the prudent person is one who controls or quenches the upflaring of passion before sinful action results.
In this connection another moral writer of the period, Poot, wrote: “Flame makes manifest that desire is a burning brand of the human heart and spirit which attacks immediately all in its way, if it has an appearance of good about it, just as natural fire consumes dry inflammables.”
And so, in the lower left, a woman controls a fire by dousing it with water from a bucket.
The virtue of foresight or provision for the future, as an aspect of prudence, is illustrated at the lower right. Typical peasant women are preparing meats and other foods for storage. The great wooden tubs, when packed, will go into the cellar; thus plenty and well-being may prevail within the house despite winter’s bitter cold.
Somewhat to the left of and behind the women, a man hoists bound twigs or branches into the barn to serve as fuel during the winter. Still farther to the left a man pours coins into a chest for safekeeping. Here, it seems, minted gold appears without the connotation of sin that we saw in the Sins series. This makes sense. Excessive desire to accumulate and hoard money and material things is a vice, Avarice. But precaution in protecting one’s rightful possessions of money or goods is part of Prudence. Such was the view presented here by Bruegel, and such too was the view of leading theologians and ethical teachers, especially among the Protestant sects with Puritan direction.
Farther back of this group several men repair a house. Thus they prudently provide against its fall. It will be recalled that in one after another of the Sins subjects, degradation and moral downfall are suggested by showing sinners in shelters little better than rotten shacks or lean-to’s. In view of the emphasis on cleanliness prevalent among the Dutch and Belgian people, it follows almost as a matter of course that order is Heaven’s first law, cleanliness is next to (and even part of) godliness, while decay and disrepair are basically disreputable.
Still closer to the horizon a dike is repaired so that it may not crumble and let the ever-threatening sea inundate the land. On the other side of the stream—on which floats a fishing boat with sails prudently trimmed to catch the breeze—stands a church. Here Prudence may walk hand in hand with divine Providence.
At the left a man lies in bed seriously ill. Providently he has summoned a medical doctor and a cleric. The former examines the sick man’s urine in a flask; probably the prognosis is poor. The cleric is taking the sick man’s last will and testament, or possibly is administering to him a last sacrament. In either case, the sick man’s action represents prudent conduct, for he has weighed the ultimate and final contingency—the certainty that awaits all mortals. And he is acting in accordance with what wisdom suggests.
One last detail—a delightful one—in the lower right corner. In a bowl of gruel or porridge the spoon stands up straight. Says Adriaan Barnouw, out of his great knowledge of the folkways and folksays of the Netherlands: “That is an allusion to a popular Dutch ditty expressive of one’s joy in knowing his tomorrow secure.” And such is the fruit of Prudence, in the sense suggested by this print.
Plate 52 is reproduced by permission of Mr. and Mrs. Jake Zeitlin, Los Angeles, California.
The original drawing, in the Boymans Museum, Rotterdam, is signed “Bruegel” and dated 1560.
The drawings for this and the following engraving (“Temperance”) date from 1560; those for the other five Virtues from the preceding year.
Here is the most agitated and tumultuous of the Virtue compositions. It is a raging battleground of the virtues against the vices; hence, it becomes the only Virtue print infested by diabolical and monstrous creatures. At the right in particular they seek to pour up from an abyss or pit, but they are beaten back by the swords of the stout soldiers of Fortitude.
The Fortitude Bruegel represents in this print is the virtue whereby men overcome vices. It is a positive, militant quality. It is by no means a mere omission of evil acts; neither is it rash or reckless bravado. It is the courageous facing and conquest of harmful passions and the sins to which they lead.
Though “Fortitude” is the accepted English rendering of the title, it might be expressed more accurately “Courage to Overcome Temptations.” The connotations of the word fortitude as commonly used have come rather too close to the idea of endurance under misfortunes. The champions of fortitude here are more than unflinching; they are out in the field slaughtering the monsters of sin. A St. George piercing the dragon is closer to this Fortitude than a St. Sebastian, patient as he perishes, pierced by arrows.
Fortitude herself—the allegorical female figure—stands foursquare on the neck of the dragon of evil. For good measure she holds an iron chain secured to a monster collar about his neck. The dragon’s tail is clamped tight in a press at the left. He snarls, but is helpless. Thus Fortitude renders evil impotent.
On her head she balances an anvil—not to increase her pressure on the dragon, but to suggest the unflinching endurance with which the anvil bears up under many hammer blows. Thus the artist imparts both aspects of courage: “When you are the anvil, bear; when you are the hammer, strike!”
Only Fortitude, among the seven allegorical Virtue figures, has wings. Barnouw reads this as an indication that Fortitude must soar “above the passions.” The column beside her betokens un-moving steadfastness.
Fortitude might repeat that old favourite elocution exercise in which the resolute maiden asserts: “This rock shall fly as soon as I!”—meaning fly as in “run away,” rather than as in “bird.”
Beasts symbolizing various vices are being slaughtered by the warriors of Fortitude. There is the toad of avarice, the peacock of pride, the dog of envy, the swine of gluttony, the ass of sloth, the monkey of lust or lechery.
Behind a wall at the rear stands a four-towered castle flying banners. The towers have man-like faces. Barnouw calls this “the citadel of Man” and reminds us that the “mouth and the eyes are the gate and the windows through which temptation may enter.”
However, the walls are guarded by angels and by resolute human figures, one of whom carries a cross. The protectors stand alert and calm, ready for every onslaught.
Noteworthy are the numbers of soldiers, mounted and afoot, who are in action in the background. Veritable forests of spears are raised, or laid in rest as Fortitude’s cavalry charge against the monstrous foes.
The organization of the military masses here is comparable to that which Bruegel used so effectively in two of his paintings on Bible subjects: “The Suicide of Saul” (1562) and “The Conversion of St. Paul on the Road to Damascus” (1567).
Other details worthy of mention include the war-shield on wheels manned by demons in the middle distance at the right. It carries a Rube Goldbergian mallet as weapon in its center. A similar shield has been overthrown by the cavalry charge in the center, and the monsters who manned the mallet are thrust through by the spears of the triumphant Fortitudians.
At the extreme upper right is the by now familiar symbol of the hollow egg or spherical shell. It seems to have served here as a sort of flying saucer, disgorging the forces of Sin, who now are being rounded up and sent “back where they came from” by the forces of Fortitude.
Translation of Latin caption: To conquer one’s impulses, to restrain anger and the other vices and emotions: this is true fortitude.
Plate 53 is reproduced by permission of Mr. and Mrs. Jake Zeitlin, Los Angeles, California.
The original drawing, in the Boymans Museum, Rotterdam, is signed “Bruegel” and dated 1560.
An interesting minor discrepancy may be seen when the print here reproduced is compared with the original drawing. On the latter, the lettering on the skirt of the allegorical figure occurs reversed—that is to say, in mirror image—doubtless for the benefit of the engraver. But the spelling is Temperancia instead of Temperantia as corrected in the engraving.
Temperance herself stands tall and grave. She is burdened with an exceptional assortment of symbols. A clock balances on her head; it suggests that always “time’s a-wasting.” She carries a bit in her mouth, and she holds its bridle in one hand, thus indicating self-control and restraint. Her other hand holds a large pair of eyeglasses, instruments of vision. She stands on the blade of a windmill, man’s device for harnessing the force of the wild, free wind to useful tasks.
Around her waist a live snake has been knotted as a belt. Stridbeck sees this as a possible symbol of the mastery of Temperance over the physical desires, associated especially with this part of the body.
As usual the Latin motto underneath offers insight into the ideas illustrated: “We must look to it that we do not give ourselves over to empty pleasures, extravagance, or lustful living; but also that we do not, because of miserly greed, live in filth and ignorance.”
The picture as a whole shows that Temperance is not conceived primarily as an avoidance of Gluttony. Rather, this Temperance might be regarded as the opposite or antidote to Sloth. For around her are marshaled examples of man’s useful, cultural, and—presumably—commendable activities. (Numerology is at work again; illustrating the moderating and beneficial rule of Temperance are the traditional Seven Liberal Arts.)
Beginning at the lower left and proceeding clockwise around the composition, we find groups representing: (1) Arithmetic, (2) Music, (3) Rhetoric (the stage, etc.), (4) Astronomy, (5) Geometry, (6) Dialectic, and (7) Grammar.
Nor did Bruegel forget the art to which he was dedicated. Just above the Arithmetic group he slipped in a painter at work before an easel, using brush, stick, and palette. As so often where we might hope to find something revealing the artist’s own personality, we are blocked: this painter’s face is turned from us.
In the Arithmetic group the arts of calculation are in action. Bills, interest, and foreign exchange are reckoned. A hatted figure cuts a property mark on a bellows. (Another branch of modern mathematics—geometry—was regarded as a separate discipline at that time, and so appears elsewhere in the picture.)
Music is pursued in an elegantly ornamented pavilion. Here are examples of (a) choral song, (b) a small orchestral ensemble, (c) an organ for religious instrumental music, (d) a lute for secular instrumental music. Various instruments lie on the ground before the choir.
Rhetoric comes next. This included the arts of eloquence and emotion-kindling expression. Here it takes the form of drama-serious, didactic drama, not just “show business.” An audience stands watching actors on elevated boards. Apparently the play is a moral allegory. Tolnay states that a young nobleman here plays the part of Hope and a lady plays Faith. At the right, the fool pokes his head around the corner, possibly representing the folly of the world. The flag above the stage, in any case, carries the symbol of the world turned upside down—an accepted expression for topsy-turvy, crazy, or even evil, human society.
Astronomy is displayed at the rear center. It includes measurement of the earth as well as the heavens. On a great globe of the earth, which seems to spin, a geographer measures latitude. Atop the globe itself stands the astronomer—or cosmologist. He applies his measure from earth to moon. The sun, complete with face, looks on from the left. The stars are spread on a dark curtain of sky. A cloud at right separates this group from Geometry.
The practitioners of Geometry make measurements of very different scale and intent. Architecture is involved here. Two workers with plumb line and dividers check a column. It must stand straight, not lean like that tower at Pisa. Below at left an artisan with a square trues a bas-relief block, as if readying it for cementing in place. Toward the right, cannon, cannonballs, and a crossbowman indicate ballistics, the bellicose branch of geometry.
On another elevation, somewhat closer, stand the five or six figures representing Dialectic, the art of logical disputation and development of ideas. A satirical slant has been pointed out here: the disputants are all talking at once. Another great Dutchman, Erasmus, had written of the dialecticians as a class of noisy fellows who will “fight to the knife about the Emperor’s beard and in the heat of the battle will generally lose sight of the truth.”
A plausible interpretation has been given by Rómdahl. He finds that the five principal dialecticians here represent the five religious faiths. Thus, at the right in long robe and skullcap is the Catholic priest; just to his left is the bearded Jewish rabbi; and opposite stand three figures representing different creeds of the Protestant Reformation. While they carry on their polemic, the Bible stands unopened on the lectern at right. This typifies the standpoint of the “Libertine” or “Spiritualist” thinkers of Bruegel’s era: true religion depended not on confessional rigidity or theological hairsplitting, but on individual study and application of the divine word contained in the Scriptures. Erasmus had written in his Praise of Folly concerning disputation that theologians who argued over non-essentials day and night never found a free moment for the Gospels or the Epistles of Paul.
Thus the dialectic group is basically a plea for religious tolerance, and a return to the basis of the Bible rather than creed and theological authority.
At the lower right sits the last group—Grammar, represented by a school where the ABC’s are taught. The master has his switch handy to keep things in order. Comparisons are in order with the school in the print entitled “The Ass at School,” reproduced on Plate 30.
A very common interpretation of this picture is that Bruegel is taking a negative attitude toward all of the arts considered, not merely the dialectic group.
Plate 54 is reproduced by permission of Mr. and Mrs. Jake Zeitlin, Los Angeles, California.
