The Triumph of Death
| The Triumph of Death | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Pieter Bruegel the Elder |
| Year | c. 1562 |
| Medium | oil on panel |
| Dimensions | 117 cm × 162 cm (46 in × 63.8 in) |
| Location | Museo del Prado, Madrid |
The Triumph of Death is an oil panel painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted c. 1562.[1] It has been in the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1827.[2]
Description
The painting shows a panorama of an army of skeletons wreaking havoc across a blackened, desolate landscape. Fires burn in the distance, and the sea is littered with shipwrecks.[3]
A few leafless trees stud hills otherwise bare of vegetation. Fish lie rotting on the shores of a corpse-choked pond. Art historian James Snyder emphasizes the "scorched, barren earth, devoid of any life as far as the eye can see."[1]
In this setting, legions of skeletons advance on the living, who either flee in terror or try in vain to fight back. In the foreground, skeletons haul a wagon full of skulls. In the upper left corner, others ring the bell that signifies the death knell of the world. People are herded into a coffin-shaped trap decorated with crosses, while skeletons on horseback kill people with a scythe. This is one of four horses ridden by skeletons that are depicted in the painting, probably alluding to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The painting depicts people of different social backgrounds – from peasants and soldiers to nobles as well as a king and a cardinal – being taken by death indiscriminately.[4]
A skeleton parodies human happiness by playing a hurdy-gurdy, while the wheels of his cart crush a man as if his life is of no importance. A woman has fallen in the path of the death cart. She has a slender thread which is about to be cut by the scissors in her other hand—Bruegel's interpretation of Atropos. Nearby, another woman in the path of the cart holds in her hand a spindle and distaff, classical symbols of the fragility of human life—another Bruegel interpretation of Clotho and Lachesis.
A starving dog nibbles at the face of a dead child lying still within its dead mother's embrace. Just beside her, a
In the bottom right-hand corner, a dinner has been broken up and the diners are putting up a futile resistance. They have drawn their swords in order to fight the skeletons dressed in winding-sheets. No less hopelessly, the
In the bottom right-hand corner, a musician plays a
In another scene at the left, skeletons drag victims down to be drowned in a pond. A man with a grinding stone around his neck is about to be thrown into the pond by the skeletons—an echoing of Matthew 18.6 and Luke 17.2. On the bridge just above at the right, a skeleton is about to strike a prostrate victim with a falchion.
Bruegel combines two distinct visual traditions within the panel. These represent both the native tradition of Northern
Popular culture
Heavy metal band Black Sabbath released a compilation album titles Black Sabbath Greatest Hits in 1977 which used the painting as the front and back covers.[7]
In
The painting plays a pivotal role in The Rich Man's House, 2019, the final novel by Australian writer Andrew McGahan, with its theme of inevitable mortality. The rich man of the title (called Richman) has acquired the painting from the Museo del Prado and it hangs in pride of place in his mountaintop house.[8]
Described in detail as being displayed as a mural under 'The Theatre des Vampires' in Anne Rice's Novel "Interview With The Vampire", p. 225. Copyright 1976 Anne O'Brien Rice. Published in U.S. by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House L.L.C., in 1976.
See also
- List of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
- 100 Great Paintings
- The Chariot of Death, painting by Théophile Schuler
Notes
- ^ ISBN 0-8109-1081-0.
- ^ Pallucchini, Anna; Ragghianti, Carlo Ludovico; Collobi, Licia Ragghianti (1968). Prado, Madrid. Great Museums of the World. New York: Newsweek. p. 134.
- ^ According to the Italian Wikipedia the background of a tower "Particular of the triumph of the death of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (the Prado, Madrid), in which the profile of (Fortification of Reggio Calabria) and the Tower of Pentimele is recognized in the background, the Flemish painter was in Reggio in the sixteenth century and in this work refers to his notes of voyage in which It describes the attack of the Pirates of Dragut on the beach of the quarter of arches."
- ^ Woodward, Richard B. (February 14, 2009). "Death Takes No Holiday". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 22, 2011.
- ^ G. Gluck, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, London (1958), s.v. "Triumph of Death". See also Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen, Bruegel: The Complete Paintings. aka Pieter Bruegel the Elder: peasants, fools and demons, Taschen (2004).
- ^ P. Thon, "Bruegel's Triumph of Death Reconsidered", Renaissance Quarterly Vol. 21, No. 3, Autumn, 1968.
- ^ "Black Sabbath – Greatest Hits compilation album released in 1977 on the NEMS Record Label. The illustration on the album front cover is El Triunfo de la Muerte by Pieter Bruegel, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal Vinyl Album Gallery #vinylrecords". vinyl-records.nl. Retrieved 2023-03-08.
- ISBN 978-1-76052-982-6.
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Breughel, Pieter". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Further reading
- Friedländer, M.J., Early Netherlandish Painting. Volume XIV: Pieter Bruegel, (Engl. transl.) Leyden (1976).
- Gibson, W.S. (1977). Bruegel. London.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Grossman, F. (1973). Pieter Bruegel: Complete Edition of the Paintings (3rd ed.). London.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Stechow, W. (1969). Pieter Bruegel. New York.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
External links
- www.Pieter-Bruegel-The-Elder.org 99 works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
- Creativity Brueghel laid the foundation of the Netherlands School
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