2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
Peter Brueghel's painting "Mad Greta" is one of the most terrible and great works of the artist. It will leave indifferent a rare person if he sees the original painting, which is in the Belgian Museum Mayer van den Bergh (Museum Mayer van den Bergh), or its reproduction or photograph.
Description of the picture
The picture "Mad Greta" is made mainly in red shades, its plot unfolds against the background of a bloody sky barely covered in smoke. The earth is teeming with creatures in which only a close look can be recognized as people. They loot, kill and fight. The huge stone head on the left side of the picture also spawns.
At first glance it seems that the artist depicted hell. But in the picture there are no mythical creatures, no devils, no demonstration of human suffering. The image shows a distorted interpretation of the behavior of people during the war. In a figurative sense, Bruegel wanted to show the underworld, but not underground, but on it, the participants of which are not souls, but living people. The masses of people shown in the picture behave in exactly the same way, because the atmosphere of war, according to the artist, lowers everyonepeople to a low level, or just crazy.
In the center of the picture is the crazy Greta herself. Her mouth is parted, one hand clutches a sword, the other is a simple belongings with a frying pan sticking out.
Obviously, the woman has lost her mind amid the ongoing chaos. The person who looks at the picture is invited to decide for himself where Greta is going - away from the city, or, conversely, she takes an active part in looting, distraught with suffering and horror.
Storyline
The artist was inspired to paint a painting called “Mad Greta” by the riots in the Netherlands in the early 60s of the 16th century, when there was an active oppression of the Spaniards in the country. This brought war, destruction and poverty.
The emotional state is conveyed by Pieter Bruegel quite accurately, so every person who looks at this picture can partially experience the disgust for war and pain that the author tried to convey.
In order to enhance the effect of tragedy, the author combines real events and fantastic elements in one picture. This is not only a way to allegorically emphasize the irresistibility of changes in human character under the influence of war, but also a powerful tool to recreate the atmosphere of horror.
Origin of the name
The choice of the name of the picture about the war and human vices was not accidental. This is a kind of parody of the name of the gun "Big Greta" famous at that time. Thus, the artist not only in his work showed his attitude towards the war, but also inevitablymetamorphoses with people taking place during the war, senselessness and cruelty.
In Belgium you can find not only the original of this painting, but also a monument to the said eminent cannon.
Artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder
The author of the painting with a surrealistic plot "Mad Greta" is a famous artist from the Netherlands of the 16th century. The date of his birth is unknown, but it is known for certain that he began his work in the forties of the 16th century. Until 1559, he signed his paintings Brueghel, and after that he threw out one extra letter and became known as Bruegel.
Peter Brueghel was greatly influenced by the work of Hieronymus Bosch. Many of his works, including Mad Greta, are visually similar to Bosch paintings: in them, emotions prevail over a reliable reflection of reality. Bosch's imitation of Brueghel reached such proportions that the latter even signed his works as "Hieronymus Bosch", he even sold these paintings, posing as the creations of a famous colleague. Such a picture is "Big fish eat small ones".
It is noteworthy that Brueghel never painted to order: neither portraits nor nudes. His work has always been of a social nature, in the paintings he denounced human vices in the most frank and ironic form.
Peter Brueghel was married, a son was born in marriage - his namesake, who also later became an artist. He is known as Brueghel the Peasant.
Peter Brueghel died inBrussels in 1569. But his work lives to this day, and even a modern person, after four and a half centuries, having read the description of the painting “Mad Greta”, will perfectly understand the feelings and emotions that the Dutch artist Peter Brueghel tried to tell through his work to his descendants and contemporaries.
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