Painting: The Peasant Wedding

~ beetleypete

The Peasant Wedding is a 1567 painting by the Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painter and printmaker Pieter Bruegel the Elder, one of his many depicting peasant life. It is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Pieter Bruegel the Elder enjoyed painting peasants and different aspects of their lives in so many of his paintings that he has been called Peasant-Bruegel, but he was an intellectual, and many of his paintings have a symbolic meaning as well as a moral aspect.

‘The bride is in front of the green textile wall-hanging, with a paper-crown hung above her head. She is also wearing a crown and sitting passively amidst the hearty eating and drinking around her. The bridegroom is not immediately obvious. The feast is in a barn in the summertime; two sheaves of grain with a rake recalls the work of harvesting, and the hard peasant life. Porters carry plates on a door taken off its hinges. The main food is bread, porridge and soup. Two pipers play the pijpzak, an unbreeched boy in the foreground licks a plate, a wealthy man at the far right is talking to a Franciscan friar, a dog emerges from under the table to snatch pieces of bread on the bench. The scene is said to accurately depict 16th-century peasant wedding customs. The door-carrier on the right appears to have an extra foot.’

Another favourite of mine, Bruegel painted detailed scenes of everyday life in the 16th century. He also had great skill at painting outdoor scenes and landscapes in Winter. I see his paintings as real social commentary, and a window on the past.

The photo can be greatly enlarged by clicking on it twice.

37 thoughts on “Painting: The Peasant Wedding”

  2. This borders on a touch of Byzantine perspective, as perspective slightly perverted. And like most artists there a good bit of artistic license taken with how freaking clean and strangely well lit everyone is🤣 Well imagined.

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    1. Either side of the bride are women, which you can tell from what they are wearing on their heads. Janet, if you look to the top left section of the painting, you can see a slim man wearing a red hat. Most art historians contend that he would be the groom, as he is helping to serve the wedding guests and is better dressed than the other porters and servers. He would not necessarily sit next to his new wife at that time in history.

      Best wishes, Pete.

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  10. There are so many things going on, you can almost hear the sound. I am fascinated by that third foot! Such paintings are a valuable window into that long ago world. The details are different but people themselves are basically the same I think. Great choice Pete.

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  16. This is amazing. It took me a while to find the dog and I never did find the groom although he may be hidden by the porter’s head. I always loved the Gleaners by  Jean-François Millet for how it depicts peasant life.

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  18. Pingback: Painting: The Peasant Wedding | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

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