Bruegel’s Falling Figures

Abstract

Reformation iconoclasm imposed intense pressure on the relation between pictorial images and their viewers. Medieval techniques used in the interpretation of biblical texts as well as processes of association involved in systems of mnemotechnics contributed to the process of redefining their function as images intended for spiritual meditation. This essay examines five paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (“Fall of the Rebel Angels,” “Conversion of Saul,” “Fall of Icarus,” “Parable of the Blind,” and “The Peasant and the Birdnester”). Each presents a moment of transformation associated with the biblical narrative of the Fall of Man. In this context, incomplete actions are held within a larger pattern of divine justice and promised redemption. During the turbulent 1560s, for a contemplative viewer, such representations of change as a phase in the cycle of becoming rather than an irredeemable rupture served to reaffirm the possibility of controlling spiritual and political chaos.