Pieter Bruegel and the Art of Laughter - AAAARG.ORG

the commodity of laughter 25
figure 6. Peeter Baltens, Peasant Kermis with the “Clucht van plaijerwater.”
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum.
and simple, especially the kluchten. 84 These were farces, 85 often involving
peasants—husbands and wives, wives and their lovers, and the like—in
comic situations. One of these was the so-called Clucht van plaijerwater,
probably written for the Violieren chamber of Antwerp at the beginning
of the sixteenth century. 86 It seems to have enjoyed considerable popularity
in Bruegel’s time, for its performance was often included in depictions
of village kermises. A good example can be seen in a painting by
Peeter Baltens, made probably sometime after 1550 (Figs. 6, 7). 87 Its plot
can be briefly summarized. A wife feigns a severe illness and sends her
husband on a wild-goose chase for plaijerwater ( phony water), whose supposedly
miraculous powers will cure her—all this so that in her husband’s
absence she can enjoy her priest-lover. Her plot is foiled, however, when