7.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525–69)

W E A L L F E E L better when we think of Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo represents the heights of human aspiration clouded in mystery (or other words to that effect). Rembrandt serves us contrariwise. Rembrandt represents the dark suffering of genius. We all become forgiving about those who have misunderstood us, when we think of Rembrandt. Thus we force art to console us, and repay it by calling it beautiful.

Of all the great artists the most recalcitrant for this purpose is Bruegel. It is true that he is often presented as the painter of jolly peas-ants dancing and simple white Christmases. But we are never able to borrow the example of his genius or quote his passion. Indeed, neither is usually mentioned, and there remains in our minds the ghost of an idea, which we would never be so brash as to mention – Bruegel was perhaps just a little too simple.

The awkward truth is that he was the most unforgiving artist who ever lived. In picture after picture Bruegel collected the evidence for a prosecution which he had no sure reason for believing would ever be mounted.

The charge he wanted brought was that of indifference. The indifference of the peasant ploughing to Icarus falling; the indiffer-ence of the crowd hurrying to gape at the Cruci, xion; the indifference

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of the Spanish soldiers (they were only obeying orders) to the pleas of the Flemish whom they loot and massacre; the indifference of the blind; to the announcement that they are being led by the blind; the indifference of the drunk to the living; the indifference of those play-ing games to precious time passing; the indifference of God to death.

Bruegel’s dif" culty in believing that the prosecution would ever take place was the result of his not knowing whom to accuse. The peasant bent over his plough could not be held entirely responsible for failing to notice Icarus. And this in turn was the result of Bruegel not being able to imagine the means by which the conditions of his mind might be changed. He had a conscience born historically too soon for the knowledge that might justify it. All he could do was to question – not fully knowing the answer. Yet even to question too obviously was not only immediately and politically dangerous, it also led him into the mortal sin of Pride, the sin which obsessed him (The Tower of Babel, The Suicide of Saul, The Fall of Lucifer) because he constantly feared that by the canons of his medieval God he was guilty of it, however circumspect he tried to be.

Yet these very contradictions which beset Bruegel forced him to an extraordinarily original and prophetic way of seeing. He introduced

Pieter Bruegel, The Triumph of Death, 1562

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Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525–69)

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no scapegoats. He made no neat division between the innocent and the guilty. He refrained from moralising. He set no single � gure up as a bad or good example. His moral passion is revealed only in the unwavering determination with which he presents the facts for judge-ment. It was beyond him to condemn a single act, a single person, because he could not see how most people could behave otherwise. And so, without ever becoming misanthropic, he had to accuse every-one of failing to be different.

It is in this way that the ordinary facts in Bruegel’s paintings become crimes in themselves. The crime of the beggar is to be a beggar, the crime of the blind is to be blind, the crime of the soldier is to be in the army, the crime of the snow is to cover the tracks. Bruegel was Brecht’s favourite painter. Brecht, in a poem, on ‘The Complaisance of Nature’, wrote as follows:

Alas the dog thatseeks attentionRubs and coaxes stillAgainst the killer’s quick leg.Alas the elms with their green shadeShelter still the man who rapedA child at the end of the village.And the blind friendly dustUrges us even now to forget the tracesOf murderers.

Bruegel and Brecht, despite the four centuries between them, want the same thing understood: Bruegel instinctively, Brecht because he could see more clearly how people take refuge in their helplessness. They both want it understood that not to resist is to be indifferent, that to forget or not to know is also to be indifferent, and that to be indiffer-ent is to condone.

This – and not because of any coincidence of subject matter – is why Bruegel’s paintings are more relevant to modern war and to the concentration camps than almost any painted since.

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