Pieter Bruegel and the Art of Laughter - AAAARG.ORG

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uegel’s art of laughter 55 figure 30. Jan Havicksz. Steen, Gamblers Quarreling, ca. 1665. The Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of James E. Scripps. “unfrown their faces.” 79 However this may be, Houbraken oªers us an insight into the popularity of such paintings. Steen and many other artists, among them Jan Miense Molenaer, Adriaen Brouwer, and Adriaen van Ostade, painted humorous scenes of peasant brawls, smoke-filled tavern interiors, and the like. Why did people buy such subjects? The answer often given is that these images showed viewers precisely the sort of undesirable behavior they should avoid, 80 much as the Spartans, Plutarch tells us, had their drunken slaves put on a show at banquets, not to enjoy their foolish behavior, but to show their
56 bruegel’s art of laughter young men by example how base it is to be seen drunk. 81 That one must learn to recognize vice in order to avoid it and strive after virtue was an idea circulated among the ancient authors, including Aristotle and Cato, and was repeated by St. Jerome, the Venerable Bede, and scores of writers thereafter. 82 Both Coluccio Salutati and Jacob Landsberger insisted that the salacious stories found in the pagan poets, and even in the Bible, would repel Christian readers and encourage them to live virtuously. 83 Similarly, plays featuring morally reprehensible characters and actions were condoned on the same basis. Sixteenth-century editors of Terence’s comedies routinely stressed their didactic value: in a prologue to Stephanus Riccius’s edition of Terence (1566 ), for example, we read that “comedy is...a mirror of life. Just as we may discern in a mirror the beauty of a face and also its blemishes, so may we likewise perceive in comedy what ought to be imitated, what ought to be shunned, what is appropriate to an honorable life.” 84 But if the low-life scenes of Brouwer, Adriaen van Ostade, Steen, and others were intended by their makers to function chiefly as “mirrors of morals,” then the very numbers in which they were produced and acquired might suggest to more literal minds that the Dutch people were in perennial need of reminders of proper conduct. While this is possible, I cannot help thinking that such pictures were widely collected, and cherished by successive generations, not so much for their edifying messages as for the astonishing virtuosity displayed by their creators in rendering the human form convincingly and vividly in the throes of often violent emotion. 85 The comic scenes of Brouwer, Steen, and their colleagues have their roots ultimately in the art of their sixteenth-century predecessors, including Pieter Bruegel. Bruegel’s abiding interest in human physiognomy is evident not only in The Alchemist but in such studies as the head of a gaping peasant woman now in Munich (Fig. 31). We also have the superb little head of a man (Fig. 32) whose prodigious yawn would cause any viewer to respond in kind: “If one yawns, so yawns the other,” according to a proverb current in Bruegel’s day. 86 This latter picture has often been attributed to Bruegel himself, although, for reasons not evi-
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A H M A N S O N • M U R P H Y F I
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pieter bruegel and the art of laugh
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University of California Press Berk
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Good friends who come to read this
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list of illustrations =ã Only date
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illustrations xi Washington, D.C.,
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illustrations xiii Musées Royaux d
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illustrations xv 52. Jacob Grimmer,
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illustrations xvii Augsburg. Leipzi
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xx acknowledgments many other insti
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prologue deciphering bruegel =ã Bu
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prologue: deciphering bruegel 3 fig
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Page 36 and 37: prologue: deciphering bruegel 11 fi
Page 38 and 39: prologue: deciphering bruegel 13 wi
Page 40 and 41: the commodity of laughter 15 How mu
Page 42 and 43: the commodity of laughter 17 a man
Page 44 and 45: the commodity of laughter 19 Courti
Page 46 and 47: the commodity of laughter 21 risqu
Page 48 and 49: the commodity of laughter 23 son”
Page 50 and 51: the commodity of laughter 25 figure
Page 52 and 53: the commodity of laughter 27 the ev
Page 54 and 55: uegel’s art of laughter 29 figure
Page 58 and 59: uegel’s art of laughter 33 Cotgra
Page 60 and 61: uegel’s art of laughter 35 traits
Page 62 and 63: uegel’s art of laughter 37 until
Page 66 and 67: uegel’s art of laughter 41 stitut
Page 72 and 73: uegel’s art of laughter 47 pressi
Page 84 and 85: uegel’s art of laughter 59 by Bru
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Page 92 and 93: chapter three a bankrupt and his br
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Page 102 and 103: chapter four rustic revels =ã Noth
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Page 106 and 107: ustic revels 81 ily, were especiall
Page 108 and 109: ustic revels 83 Hendrik van Berchem
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Page 112 and 113: ustic revels 87 figure 49. Joachim
Page 114 and 115: ustic revels 89 figure 50. Maerten
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Page 120 and 121: ustic revels 95 figure 56. Detail o
Page 122 and 123: ustic revels 97 was included by Til
Page 124 and 125: ustic revels 99 In any case, Van Ma
Page 126 and 127: ustic revels 101 figure 58. Detail
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ustic revels 105 with the envy of t
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making good cheer 107 chiefly by th
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making good cheer 109 figure 61. Fr
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making good cheer 111 figure 63. Fr
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making good cheer 113 over who’s
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making good cheer 115 the jocularit
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making good cheer 117 ing. But his
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making good cheer 119 figure 66. De
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making good cheer 121 figure 68. De
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making good cheer 123 with streamin
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griet and her sisters 125 figure 70
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griet and her sisters 127 kluchten,
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griet and her sisters 133 immediate
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griet and her sisters 135 Sachs des
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griet and her sisters 141 symbolic
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epilogue taking laughter seriously
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taking laughter seriously 147 the s
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taking laughter seriously 149 scath
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taking laughter seriously 151 is it
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taking laughter seriously 153 figur
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taking laughter seriously 155 count
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notes =ã The book’s epigraph is
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notes to pages 4-6 159 16. Panofsky
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notes to pages 9-10 161 42. In anot
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notes to page 15 163 of manners tha
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notes to pages 16-17 165 ing fool!
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notes to pages 18-19 167 31. Quoted
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notes to pages 20-21 169 to Modern
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notes to pages 23-24 171 boerden; s
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notes to pages 24-26 173 are cited
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notes to pages 27-29 175 E. Roobaer
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notes to pages 33-35 177 11. Jouber
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notes to pages 37-43 179 tocht door
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notes to pages 47-48 181 pared the
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notes to pages 52-55 183 sance: The
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notes to page 57 185 one leads so o
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notes to pages 59-61 187 2001, pp.
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notes to pages 68-72 189 Gregory Ma
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notes to page 74 191 is generally a
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notes to pages 75-77 193 41. Biog.
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notes to pages 79-80 195 Schoonbeke
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notes to page 81 197 kermissen onde
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notes to pages 83-84 199 cation d
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notes to pages 88-89 201 1555-60 (V
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notes to pages 94-96 203 73. “Dus
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notes to pages 97-98 205 87. Burke
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notes to pages 100-106 207 no. 5 (1
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notes to pages 107-110 209 Methuen
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notes to pages 112-113 211 teenth C
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notes to page 115 213 “told for a
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notes to pages 118-120 215 74. Goed
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notes to pages 121-123 217 ized as
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notes to pages 127-128 219 name, wh
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notes to pages 129-131 221 further
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notes to pages 132-133 223 of Hesse
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notes to pages 135-138 225 West Pru
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notes to pages 141-142 227 60. Quot
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notes to pages 145-150 229 epilogue
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notes to pages 154-156 231 21. See
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234 select bibliography Bell 1999.
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236 select bibliography Dreyer 1977
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238 select bibliography ———.
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240 select bibliography De Jong et
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242 select bibliography Marguerite
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244 select bibliography Van der Noo
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246 select bibliography bäuerliche
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248 select bibliography Stoett 1943
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250 select bibliography Wauters 191
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Aertsen, Pieter, 51, 86, 87, 99, 10
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index 255 Kermis, 81, 82, 83, 150,
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index 257 Drawings, 1, 8, 9, 10, 11
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index 259 Hemessen, Jan Sanders van
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index 261 Meckenem, Israhel van, 13
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index 263 39, 149, 174n91, 224n43;
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index 265 seigneurial relations, 78
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