I don't have much to say at the moment - except it would seem in the comments - but I've had this up in a tab for a week now. Isn't it gorgeous? I find it wonderful that something most of 500 years old can be so good; and it is hardly alone.
In other news we came third in the IM3 IV+ in Robs's Autumn Head today; but only by 1.6 seconds. Despite a strong headwind, and a rain shower while marshalling, it was a lovely day, unseasonably warm.
Horns and swords good. Fish, amphibians, reptiles, mollusks, sex and procreation bad.
ReplyDeleteI might have preferred Aristotle.
ReplyDeleteChaucer is older and better.
ReplyDeleteThe contemporary political context was the new Dutch Protestantism which was becoming a major free trade / capitalism force but was under repression by the strict, centrally ruled economy of Catholic Spain.
ReplyDeleteTwo years later he painted another 'Biblical' scene, the Massacre of the innocents, in which the supposed soldiers of Herod are depicted as Spanish soldiers in a Dutch village.
He was painting them for rich Dutch patrons who had gained their wealth from the new expansion of trade with Asia and America by Protestant Dutch, but fuelled by Spanish silver gained by colonial expropriation.
Are the Angels in white the Spanish inquisition?
Which side was Bruegel, and his patron on do you think ?
izen
Off topic, but the comedy is so black I can't stop myself: David Davis, prominent Brexiter, is now saying that if Theresa May does not turn out as expected, Tory MPs should get a second vote for leader.
ReplyDelete> Aristotle
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, he's coming.
> Chaucer
Ace poet, but his daubs didn't last.
> Context
I've always found the habit of painting biblical scenes with contemporary dress, and indeed backgrounds, somewhat odd. I usually wonder how many of those viewing them had enough context to realise they were anachronous. There are so many things about how they thought that we don't know.
> Brexit
I'm afraid I've largely stopped following it, largely because there seems to be no point. No point in following the details, that is.
@-"There are so many things about how they thought that we don't know."
ReplyDeleteTry reading what they wrote about what they thought.
They did not see depicting biblical scenes in contemporary dress as anachronistic because they saw and thought about contemporary events in terms of a biblical framework. It was the default underlying basis for how they parsed the world.