10 Hidden Details You Never Noticed In Famous Paintings
3. A Painting Of 100 Scenes - Netherlandish Proverbs (Pieter Bruegel)
Pieter Bruegel began his career making engravings of proverbs for book publishers, when these proved popular he decided to go into business for himself and paint.
Netherlandish Proverbs, painted in 1559, appears less like a large scale subject piece and more like a hand painted 'Where's Wally' page. Please note, Wally is nowhere in the painting; don't waste your time. The painting contains over 100 proverbs, idioms and general phrases made flesh in the most chaotic village in 1500s Holland.
The subjects were well known in 16th century Dutch society, and most don't translate into English, but a few endure today in the English language like a man banging his head against a wall, someone swimming against the tide, a man crying over spilled porridge (milk); and someone who has tiled their house in pies, which in English roughly translates as 'pissing one's money away'.
Bruegel is very much the class cut-up of the art world, as his other piece 'Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus' demonstrates. The vast majority of the painting is a serene coastal landscape; on first glance you can easily miss Icarus' legs popping out of the water in one corner.