Peter Brueghel’s Triumph of Death
In: Death, Dying, Culture: An Interdisciplinary InterrogationSearch for other papers by Jean-Louis Claret in
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The Triumph of Death by Peter Brueghel is a haunting picture that presents an apocalyptic vision. It combines Italian and Northern traditions and it seems to convey a didactic message that the series of characters in the foreground deliver to the viewers, thus providing a universal demonstration: the king, the cardinal, the jester, the lovers, the warriors and even the mythical Graces are doomed. The image presents the irresistible power of levelling death that overcomes earthly power and strikes the fascinated spectators with terror. Even the jester, who wisely crawls for refuge under a tablecloth, is doomed. A female singer and a lute player in the bottom right corner strike a strange note: they provide some sort of desperate beauty and unexpected peacefulness that contrast with the whole cacophony. The woman is not afraid. Close by a mysterious bony ‘actor’ wearing a flesh mask can be made out toying with a golden bathtub, and he seems to be addressing the viewers: he may be the key to this sonorous mess. The message he conveys may be made out thanks to an earlier picture by Brueghel that represents Flemish Proverbs. I propose to describe this late 16th century picture by underlining its theatricality, and to try and make out the Renaissance message it conveys about life and death that critics still tend to overlook. This may be due to the fact that the Flemish painter sidetracks the viewer whose gaze is easily caught and led astray by a series of tantalizing scenes. But Brueghel has also dropped some unmistakable hints that have gone unnoticed so far and that, once pieced together, help make up a powerful and coherent standpoint.