This Painting Contains 126 Hidden Messages - Netherlandish Proverbs by Pieter Bruegel

At first glance, there is nothing especially strange about this village. People gather outside a tavern. Boats drift across the water. Smoke rises from rooftops. In the distance, the landscape stretches peacefully towards the sea. It looks chaotic, perhaps, but ordinary. Then you notice the man smashing his head against a wall. And once you see him, other things begin to feel wrong. Why is that soldier carrying a sword in his mouth? Why is someone throwing money into the river? Wait, why is that same soldier trying to put a bell around a cat? And what exactly is happening in that window? None of these details are accidents. In fact, Peter Bruegel built almost every corner of this painting around a hidden idea. And once you understand what those people are really doing, this seemingly ordinary village becomes something completely different. This is Netherlandish Proverbs, painted in 1559, and we're going to take a closer look. One of the easiest places to begin is in the bottom left corner. There, a man quite literally hits his head against a brick wall. The expression is still familiar today. Repeatedly trying to do something impossible or frustrating. But Bruegel may have hidden another figure. Look at his feet. He's wearing only one shoe. An old Flemish proverb spoke of having one foot shod, the other bare. An image associated with unreliability. So a single tiny character may already represent two different sayings. Just above him is a soldier. He has a blade held directly in his mouth. He is, quite literally, armed to the teeth. And if you look at the animal in front of him, you'll notice that he appears to be trying to attach something to a cat. He is belling the cat. The expression comes from an old fable, in which mice realized that their lives would be much easier if they could put a bell around a cat's neck. Then they would always hear the cat approaching. It's a brilliant plan. There is only one problem. Who is going to risk actually putting the bell on the cat? So belling the cat came to mean attempting an extremely dangerous or practically impossible task. And Bruegel keeps going. Above this, a man sticks his bare backside out of a window. Directly beneath him is a globe. He is crapping on the world. An expression for someone who despises everything. And notice that the globe itself is upside down. Because, of course, the world has turned upside down. Inside the same room, there appears to be a card game taking place. Some of the cards have fallen away. Perhaps Bruegel is asking us to see where the cards fall. And on the windowsill are a pair of dice. The die has been cast. A decision has been made. And there is no going back. Then look at the two men leaning through the window. Each appears to have the other by the nose. They are literally leading each other by the nose, fooling or deceiving one another. It's almost like Bruegel is challenging us to see how many expressions he can squeeze into a few square inches of paint. Even the dark interior of the tavern contains its own collection. One man has fallen between two stools. Today we use the expression for someone who fails because they cannot choose between two alternatives. The Flemish version referred more specifically to sitting between two stools in the ashes, which may explain why Bruegel's unfortunate man appears to be crying out in pain. Beside him, another figure kneels over hot coals, cooking three herrings. Perhaps he has other fish to fry. Or Bruegel may be illustrating another Flemish saying, the herring doesn't fry here, meaning that things are not going according to plan. And even the circular object on the man's head may be meaningful. An old expression, to get the lid on the head, meant finally having to accept responsibility. Once you understand what Bruegel is doing, the entire village changes. What initially looked like chaotic everyday activity becomes an enormous puzzle. And according to some estimates, there may be 126 different phrases and idioms hidden throughout the painting. For a modern viewer, that makes the work entertaining. But for Bruegel's original audience, it offered something more. It was almost an encyclopedia of Flemish language, humor, and folk wisdom. And that mattered because Bruegel was working at a time when Flemish art was increasingly drawn towards grand classical and mythological subjects. Bruegel went in almost the opposite direction. He was fascinated by ordinary people, superstition, folklore, and the accumulated wisdom of everyday life. The painting itself is cleverly organized. Bruegel fills the surface with light, texture, and movement, combining indoor and outdoor scenes until the village feels almost like a labyrinth. Near the center, one feature immediately catches the eye. A bright red tavern sign displaying a crescent moon. The red stands out dramatically against the browns and ochres surrounding it, and the tavern itself makes sense as the center of the composition. Like taverns across Europe, it would have been a natural social hub, somewhere everyone eventually passed through. But Bruegel cannot resist adding one more joke. Above the sign, a man appears to be urinating directly onto the crescent moon. He is pissing towards the moon, wasting his effort on something completely futile. From the tavern, the village opens out along a road towards a river, and from there eventually towards the sea. So the painting gradually expands from this very specific little community into a much wider world. And even beside the river, the proverbs continue. A finely dressed man throws coins straight into the water. He is literally throwing his money into the water, frittering his wealth away. Nearby, two rear ends protrude through the same opening. They crap through the same hole, which strangely enough means that two friends are completely inseparable. Bruegel was fascinated by proverbs, and he painted them more than once. But in Netherlandish proverbs, he seems to have pushed the idea as far as it could possibly go. Take this tiny scene. Someone is casting roses before swine, wasting something valuable on those who cannot appreciate it. And that is part of what makes the painting so entertaining. A proverb can express a perfectly sensible piece of wisdom, but paint it literally, and suddenly it becomes completely absurd. Bruegel fills an entire village with these visual jokes, while somehow making the place itself feel strangely believable. And perhaps that is the real achievement of the painting. Because beneath all the humor, these sayings are really about human behavior. Jealousy, wastefulness, indecision, deception, foolishness. People wasting their time, throwing away their money, misleading one another, and making the same mistakes people have always made. But Bruegel never seems particularly cruel about it. He appears to enjoy the absurdity of these people, without placing himself above them. The joke isn't simply that this village is full of fools. It's that we all live in this village. We all waste our time. We all make bad decisions. And every now and then we all find ourselves hitting our heads against a brick wall. More than 450 years later. That may be why Netherlandish proverbs still feel so strangely familiar. Please consider subscribing if you'd like to see more of this kind of content. A new video will be posted every week.