What Does this Brueghel Painting Really Mean?
A new interpretation of the famous painting of ‘The Fight Between Carnival and Lent’…
Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s Fight between Carnival and Lent is considered by many art historians to be a genre scene representing the symbolic clash between the profane and the religious. This interpretation is based not only on the two figures on makeshift chariots in the foreground, but also on a certain Flemish pictorial tradition. The other elements of the painting are all-too-often dismissed as merely decorative, intended to place the event in the context of a mid-sixteenth-century Flemish village festival. But if Brueghel had wanted to illustrate only this duel, he might well have settled for a painting that focused on the two symbolic figures. The fact that he chose to depict so much more indicates that he wanted to tell us much more.
Carnival and Lent
For those unfamiliar with Christian rituals, a preamble is necessary to contextualise the subject of the painting.
Lent is a liturgical period observed by Catholic and Orthodox Christians. It lasts 40 days and precedes Easter. This time is directly related to the time Jesus spent in the desert (see Bible: Mark 1:12–13, Matt 4:1–11, Luke 4:1–13). Like Jesus, the Christian must resist…
