Sunday, October 19, 2014

Bruegel's Big Fish Eat Little Fish




Tuesday's lecture will focus on the impact of the Protestant Reformation, the radical break with the Catholic church fomented by the German preacher Martin Luther beginning in 1517, which comprised among many things a strong critique of perceived decadence and idolatry in Catholic religious images.  One practical result of the Reformation was the emergence of new genres of art that were not religious in subject matter, but comprised the representation of scenes from everyday life and popular culture.  A particularly remarkable example is this engraving by the Netherlandish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder (published 1557), which illustrates the popular Dutch proverb "big fish eat little fish," a comment on the hierarchical man-eat-man (or fish-eat-fish) world of human society.  Remarkably, the print is not signed in the bottom left corner with Bruegel's own name but instead with the phrase "Hieronymus Bosch inventor," which would suggest that Bosch and not Bruegel designed it, even though this is not the case!  What connection do you see between Bruegel's "Big Fish" print and Bosch's works that we discussed earlier in the semester, which might justify the reference to Bruegel's artistic precursor?  And what you think might be possible explanations for why Bruegel and/or the publisher of this print used Bosch's name instead of Bruegel's?

To compare Bruegel's engraving with his preliminary drawing for the print in close detail, see this website:

http://80.57.84.48/Albertina/

16 comments:

  1. When looking at this piece by Bruegel I think back to Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights." While Bruegel's piece does not have the same effect as it does not have color, one gets a similar sense evoked when looking at this piece as when looking at Bosch's work. Like Bosch's work, this piece has many different things going on that all come together to make one piece. Instead of many people performing many erotic acts, like Bosch depicts, Bruegel has many fish doing random acts with other fish or with people. There are instances in the piece when the fish are eating each other, being cut, running from each other, and flying. Even though fish can't walk, run, or fly, these impossible acts that Bruegel has the fish performing is much like what Bosch did with the different combinations and interactions he made with man and animal. I think the choice to sign the piece with Bosch's name as opposed to Bruegel says something about the connection between the two pieces as well as Bruegel's view of the piece he created. Going off the assumption that Bruegel was the one who chose to sign the piece with Bosch's name, it seems that he did this in order to evoke and show that he was able to recreate Bosch's amazing work, while leaving out the connections to a holy deity, and still evoke a similar feeling in the viewer. Bruegel must have been confident enough that people would know that he was the one who created this piece, thus by signing it with Bosch's name, Bruegel wants the viewer to think and compare this piece to the "Garden of Earthy Delights" which Bruegel knows is referred to as an amazing piece of artwork.

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    1. Interesting connection to the "Garden of Earthly Delights" and especially thoughtful point about whether Bruegel could have expected his audience to know that the engraving was his work in spite of the Bosch signature. Bruegel was at this point still in his early career, but his prints took off rapidly soon hereafter, and there is little doubt that his audience soon understood the "Big Fish" to be his invention (not Bosch's). This is a

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  2. The paintings of Bruegel and Bosch can be viewed as realistic portrayals of nature, and also as satirical, grotesque, and whimsical scenes from their imagination. The similarities of style and subject matter are apparent in the work. Both artists have created mythical creatures, for example in the image above there are flying fish, walking fish, and gigantic fish. Bruegel’s subjects are depicted in the wild and imaginative manner of Hieronymus Bosch, whose works came before Bruegel. Bruegel might have been capitalizing on the strong market demand for images in the style or manner of Hieronymus Bosch, and wanted viewers to be reminded of the similarities by signing Bosch’s name instead of his own on the “big fish eat little fish” artwork.

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    1. Audrey is indeed correct that there was a strong market demand for Bosch's works that must have motivated in part Bruegel's conscious emulation of his predecessor. Very nice point as well that both Bruegel and Bosch engage with the representation of nature through the lens of the humorous and grotesque!

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  3. Bruegel is imitating Bosch in this engraving in several ways. First of all, the artistic style is similar: strange and grotesque fish/human hybrids fill the space along with ordinary humans and fish. The landscape has some perspective to it, but Bruegel is not as concerned with perspective and realistic portrayal with space, because the space is not a real one. In this way he is also imitating Bosch: using strange surreal landscapes as commentary on the real world. Interestingly, Bruegel's "Triumph of Death" painting, which was only made a few years later, he did claim as his own.

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    1. Jo makes a great observation about the use of hybrid figures in Bruegel's engraving (especially the fish with legs in the upper left) as closely grounded in Bosch's model.

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  4. Both pieces portray realistic figures performing unrealistic actions. The space that the figures are in (in both paintings) plays on realistic space while stretching what should be considered realistic. Signing the painting with Bosch's name serves to remind the viewer of Bosch's work and therefore enables the viewer to form a comparison between the two artists, hopefully making the conclusion that Bruegel is an impressive artist as he is able to re-invent Bosch's work.

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    1. Absolutely, Katie is right that one function of the Bosch signature serves to set up a competition between Bruegel and his predecessor, emphasizing Bruegel's ability to re-invent the model of his predecessor.

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  5. If we look at Bruegel’s Big Fish Eat Little Fish, we can notice a few key similaritities to Hieronymous Bosch’s work, specifically The Garden of Earthly Delights. Firstly, there is a wide range of values used to add depth and texture to each form, similar to the way figures were modeled in pieces like The Garden of Earthly Delights, as each person in that piece was clearly defined with lights and shadows. Secondly, the imagery of fantasy-like/mythology-like forms mirror the fantasy of images of Bosch’s Garden in the crazy animals and humans meshing together, defecating, eating, posing, etc. Thirdly, the strong motif of animals in larger scale or interacting with humans in specific ways is like the birds/other animals in Bosch’s Garden also. A possible explanation as to why Bruegel signs the piece “Hieronymous Bosch Inventor,” could be because Bruegel saw himself as a propagator of Bosch’s style and for helping to normalize it into the larger art culture accepted by the masses during the Reformation.

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    1. Savannah makes a nice point about how it is not only the hybrid creatures in Bruegel's engraving but also the play with scale that associates this work with Bosch!

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  6. This piece by Bruegel is similar to Hieronymous Bosch's style and reminds me of Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights". Both pieces have real-life people and animals however they are both designed to portray these figures and objects in unrealistic ways that we cannot imagine. For example, in Bruegel's piece, the man is cutting into the big fish with a knife that is larger than him. To us, knives are small and hand held, but the viewer can see that this man is struggling to support it. Other images in the piece above, for example the man with a fish on his back climbing a ladder, seem very unrealistic to viewers. In Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" Bosch created hell with normal objects but also made them unrealistic, such as putting a knife through two ears. Both artists have created surreal scenes with nature in the background, which makes the viewer curious as to what is going on in the scene. Since Bruegel came along later, he might have created his artwork to be similar to Bosch's after seeing that that style was popular and he could be successful if he attempted to imitate it.

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    1. Amanda is certainly right that Bruegel figured his own success on the Antwerp art market in relation to Bosch's legacy, and again, nice analysis of the play with scale between man and fish here!

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  7. I can clearly see a connection between this piece and Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights". The unrealistic depiction of the fishes in Bruegel's piece overlaps with Bosch's surreal depiction of animals. The fishes are unrealistic in their sizes, the way they fly, and the way they walk on two legs. Both of them are drawn realistically in texture and perspective, but they are portrayed almost in a grotesque, nonsensical way. I think he used Bosch's name to give credit to him for inspiration.

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    1. Esther's word "inspiration" is a really nice way of thinking about how Bruegel relates his work to that of Bosch. This is not just slavish imitation but an emulative work inspired by Bosch's model in which Bruegel brings a single Boschian monster to center stage and places it not in a hell scene, but rather in a contemporary landscape.

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  8. The first connection I see with Bruegel's piece and Bosch's pieces are the larger gestalt shape they both have. In Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, you can see a half moon curve in the middle of the piece. As with Death and the Miser, there is also a curving line that goes through the top of the piece. The fish in Bruegel's piece mimics this half moon curve. In addition, in Bosch's pieces, there seems to be a separation of the top from the bottom. Bruegel takes this characteristic in with the divide between the top half with the fish and the bottom half with the boat. In general, by looking at the composition and the greater shapes, Bruegel's piece imitates Bosch's works. In addition, there is a same level of grotesque and strangeness in Bruegel's and Bosch's works. Bruegel has the same notion of having an entire scene that looks 'normal,' but as one gets closer, you can find the grotesque and the strange. This is the same for Bosch. For example, in Bruegel's piece you can find hybrid fish-humans and bigger than life knives. In Bosch's pieces, you can find strange hybrid animals and grotesque scenes of people begin tortured. These elements and many more can justify Bruegel's reference to Bosch.

    There are many reasons why Bruegel used Bosch's name after his death to get the audience to associate his work with Bosch's. Because Bosch was a radically different painter from the other artists at his time, perhaps Bruegel wanted to channel that same notion. Bruegel, alongside the introduction of the Protestant Reformation, wanted to show the audience how new his print was. He wanted the audience to equate the radicalness of Bosch with his radical print and thus the radicalness of the Protestant Reformation, as it was a new idea that shattered many people's strong beliefs. Thus, Bruegel channels Bosch to get the audience to equate the two as new ideas that are meant to shock.

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    1. Really interesting analysis! Bruegel's art definitely responds to the Protestant Reformation in grappling with a new kind of subject matter that will be accepted in a context in which traditional Catholic religious images have come under threat. Nobody before Bruegel had every produced a work of art for the public market that took as its central subject a popular proverb. This is a new genre born from the margins of Bosch's works. Another really nice point Eva makes is about the similarity in form between Bruegel's curving fish and the geometries defining many of Bosch's compositions!

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