450-Year-Old Painting Contains Over 100 Proverbs We Still Use Today

MyModernMet ^ | January 14, 2017 | Jessica Stewart

[Bob434]

Birds of a feather flock together. When the cat's away, the mice will play. We all know and love these common, American proverbs. Sometimes ironic, often silly and amusing, these sayings test our brains—and our wit. And it's not just in English. Playing with language in literature, conversation, and art has been a hallmark of different cultures for centuries.

With this in mind, over 450 years ago, Dutch master Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted his incredible Netherlandish Proverbs. Also known as The Dutch Proverbs, this oil on wood painting is a detailed masterpiece that visually represents over 100 Dutch proverbs. Bruegel is known for his elaborately detailed work, and what seems at first like a simple village scene with a wide cast of characters, is soon revealed to be something more.

[Bob434]

A Little Break from all the nonsense being perpetrated by the left lately. Pretty cool painting showing over 100 'common sayings' acted out, like 'swimming against the tide' and 'banging one's head against the wall'- see how many you can find. (Note, some are dutch sayings, so they are a little different than what we would say today- but most are very similar or the same)

Here is a larger version of it that you can scroll in on to see it better:

https://www.wikiart.org/en/pieter-bruegel-the-elder/netherlandish-proverbs-1559

[Bob434]

Dang, here’s the link:

https://www.wikiart.org/en/pieter-bruegel-the-elder/netherlandish-proverbs-1559

[Bob434]

Just click on the picture in the last link i gave, and it will open larger- then scroll the mouse wheel to enlarge

[Red Badger]

PinGGG!......................

[Red Badger]

[Hootowl99]

Lol! The only one I got was “raining money”. That painting is one huge riddle.

[Red Badger]

OOPs!...............................

[Red Badger]

[a fool in paradise]

>>We all know and love these common, American proverbs. Sometimes ironic, often silly and amusing, these sayings test our brains—and our wit. And it’s not just in English. Playing with language in literature, conversation, and art has been a hallmark of different cultures for centuries. With this in mind, over 450 years ago, Dutch master Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted his incredible Netherlandish Proverbs.

Unfortunately the common culture is being torn asunder.

Students aren’t exposed to the Bible anymore and Shakespeare is old hat too now. American history? Nope. Foundational documents (including the basis of law that built upon the civilations that led to Western Civilization...

[Big Red Badger]

“Why does
The Heathen Rage?”
.
Should be in It.

[Bob434]

Thanks for the larger painting.

[Bob434]

the first link i did shows a number of them up close- and explains what they mean- some of them are a bit off colour though lol

[Bob434]

LOL -Eyuck!

[a fool in paradise]

He could be a bit crude at times

[the_Watchman]

One hundred years ago, Rudyard Kipling wrote “The gods of the Copybook Headings”. It was based on the fact that previous generations had learned penmanship by copying old proverbs from the tops of each page of a copybook. Thus, they learned the proverbs at the same time that they practiced penmanship.

Kipling’s poem lamented that each generation turns from the common sense proverbs and tries to forge their own path through life ignoring them. The poem is brilliant and highly relevant for today.

http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm

I memorized this poem in fifth grade back in the 1950’s.

[Bob434]

I didn’t know much about him- but the crudeness i nthe paintings is like ‘crapping on the world’ which he depicts- or ‘2 crapping from the same spot’ or something like that-

A lot of hte sayings however have kind of gone out of fashion, so are unfamiliar, and hard to decipher because of that- but still a fun painting- would like a copy of it to hang in the bathroom to pass the time lol

[FamiliarFace]

Quite interesting!

[a fool in paradise]

He was an influence on Bill Elder from Mad comics and later Mad Magazine and later later Trump Magazine and Little Annie Fannie.

He put a lot of what he called "chicken fat" details into the backgrounds and surrounding figures.

[Bob434]

[[Kipling’s poem lamented that each generation turns from the common sense proverbs and tries to forge their own path through life ignoring them.]]

Yep- We also have forgotten how to ‘learn from the mistakes in history’, and so we keep repeating them-

Thanks for the link-

“And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,”

Sure sounds like what the left are trying to foist on this world, EXCEPT that they do wish to make the right pay for non existent sins- but they themselves, the left- don’t have to ever pay-

[Bob434]

It’s amazing how involved some works of art are- i was just going through a site showing the ‘secrets of masterpieces’ where they included hidden meanings and symbols etc- quite interesting-