“Netherlands Proverbs” [1] ( Dutch: Nederlandse Spreekwoorden ), or “The World Upside Down” ( The Topsy-Turvy World ) - a painting by Peter Bruegel the Elder , written in 1559 , which depicts the literal meanings of Dutch proverbs.
| ||
| Peter Brueghel the Elder | ||
| Dutch proverbs . 1559 | ||
| Nederlandse spreekwoorden | ||
| Board, oil . 117 × 163 cm | ||
| State Museums of Berlin , Berlin | ||
The painting exhibited at the Berlin Art Gallery is filled with symbols related to Dutch proverbs and sayings , but not all of them have been deciphered by modern scholars, as some expressions have been forgotten over time. Almost simultaneously with Brueghel, the country of proverbs was described in his novel Pantagruel by the French writer Francois Rabelais .
With great artistic strength, Brueghel presents a picture of the absurdity, weakness, stupidity of man. His son Peter Brueghel the Younger made about 20 copies of his father’s work, and not all copies exactly reproduce the original, differing from it in a number of details.
Description
About a hundred well-known proverbs are revealed in the picture, although, probably, Brueghel actually depicted even more, but some of them are not recognized at present. Some proverbs are still common, some are gradually becoming obsolete.
| Proverb | Value | Picture |
|---|---|---|
| Be able to tie even a devil to a pillow | Stubbornness Overcoming Everything | |
| Bite the column | Be a religious prude | |
| Carry fire in one hand and water in the other | Be two-faced | |
| Bang your head against the wall | Trying to achieve the impossible | |
| One foot shod, the other barefoot | Imbalance, excesses | |
| Pig opens the gag | Negligence turns into disaster | |
| Hang a bell on a cat | Commit a dangerous and unreasonable act | |
| Arms to the teeth | Prepare well | |
| Bite iron | Lie, don't be shy | |
| Some are shearing sheep and some are pigs | One has advantages, the other does not. | |
| Shear (sheep), but do not remove the skins | Do not go too far in using the available opportunities and advantages. | |
| Here the herring is not fried | Things do not obey your plan | |
| Fry whole herring for eggs | Too much effort to achieve an insignificant result | |
| Put a cap on your head | Refuse previous liability | |
| Herring hanging on its gills | Be prepared for responsibility for your actions | |
| There's more to it than just herring | There is something more than can be seen at first glance | |
| What can smoke with iron do? | It makes no sense to try to change the immutable | |
| Find a Potted Dog | To be late for a meal and come when everything is already eaten | [3] |
| Sitting in the ashes between the stools | Be indecisive | |
| Chickens feel | Engage in premature settlements | |
| Scissors posted | You are more than likely to be deceived here. | |
| Always swallow the same bone | Keep talking on the same topic | |
| Speak with two mouths | To be deceitful and duplicitous | face of a person next to a person groping chickens |
| Depends on how the card lies | Depends on the case | |
| Pull through a hole in the scissors | Get dishonest profits; or Eye for Eye | scissors and eye - to the right and above the roof with maps |
| The world turned upside down | Everything is not as it should be | |
| Leave at least one egg in the nest | Always have at least some reserve | |
| Defecate on the world | Respect nothing | |
| Drive each other by the nose | Fooling around | |
| Die is cast | Decision is made | |
| Fools go card | Stupidity can overcome the mind | |
| Look through your fingers | Be lenient | |
| There’s a knife hanging | To undertake something difficult requiring vigorous activity | |
| There are wooden shoes | Wait in vain | |
| Stick out a broom | Have fun while there is no master | |
| Marry under a broom | Cohabitation without marriage | |
| Cover the roof with cakes (cakes) | Be very rich | |
| (Anyone) has a hole in the roof | Unreasonable | |
| Old roof requires a lot of patches | Old thing needs more care | |
| The roof is not without shingles | Here they can eavesdrop (“and there are ears at the walls”) | |
| Have toothache behind the ears | Simulate | |
| Write to the moon | Spending time on futile efforts | |
| There is a pot hanging | (Something) not as it should be | |
| Shoot (from a crossbow) a second time to catch the first arrow | Repeat stupid action | |
| Archer wasting his arrows | Spends stock | |
| Shave the fool without soap | Fooling anyone | |
| Two fools under one hood | Stupidity loves society | |
| Growing out of the window | Unable to hide | |
| To indulge at the pillory | Attract attention with (your) shameful actions | |
| If the gate is open, pigs run in bread | Carelessness turns into disaster | |
| Grains are smaller - the pig is thicker | The profit of one turns into the losses of the other | |
| Run like an ass burns | Being in big trouble | |
| Eating fire - defecate in sparks | Do not be surprised at the outcome of a dangerous undertaking | |
| Hang a raincoat in the wind | Adapt your opinion to the current moment | |
| Wind feathers in the wind | Useless work | |
| Staring at the stork | Wasting time | |
| Kill two flies with one slap | Be successful, effective | |
| Fall from a bull to a donkey | Black days have come | |
| Kissing a doorknob | To be insincere | |
| Wipe (someone's) ass on the door | Treat (someone) dismissively | |
| Evade a heavy burden | Imagine that things are worse than they really are | |
| One beggar is very reluctant to see another beggar at his gate | It's about competition | |
| Fishing past the net | Miss the opportunity | |
| There is always a bigger fish | ||
| Do not tolerate the appearance of sun glare on the water | Jealous of someone else's success | |
| Hanging like a need over a pit | Obvious case | |
| Anyone can look through a (oak) board, if there is a hole in it | To state the obvious is pointless | |
| Together go to one toilet | Are in full agreement | |
| Throw money into someone’s water | Spend (someone's) money in vain | |
| Cracked wall will collapse soon | Everything quickly fails without proper care | |
| Let the other house burn while you can warm | Use every opportunity without worrying about the consequences for anyone else. | |
| Drag a large stone (block) | To be deceived in love, to do aimless work | |
| Fear made the old woman run | Surprise can awaken new qualities in a person | |
| No figs fall out of a horse | Do not be fooled by the appearance | |
| If the blind leads the blind, both fall into the pit | No reason to learn from an ignoramus | |
| I saw the church and the stable, but this does not mean that you have already arrived | Do not stop working until you complete it. | |
| Like it or not, everything will come out in the sun | You can’t hide forever | |
| Keep an eye on the sail | Be on your guard, watch | |
| Defecate on the gallows | Be indifferent to any punishment | |
| Where is the corpse, crows fly there | If the signs point to something, then this is most likely the case. | |
| Sailing in the wind is easy | It will not be difficult to achieve the goal in favorable circumstances. | |
| Who knows why a goose is barefoot? | There is a reason for everything, albeit not obvious. | |
| If I do not intend to keep geese, let geese remain just geese | Do not go out of your way | |
| Watch the bears dance [4] | Starve | |
| Wild bear, if communicates, then with their own kind [4] | Better to stick with your own than with outsiders | |
| Throwing a hood over a fence | Throwing a thing without full confidence in its futility | |
| Bad swim against the tide | It’s hard to resist common opinion | |
| A pitcher walks on water until it breaks | Everything has a limit | |
| The best belts come from someone else's skin | It’s easier to get something at the expense of another person | |
| Hold eel by tail | Take a tough job | |
| In the basket fail | Show others their indecision | |
| To be suspended between heaven and earth | Find yourself in a difficult situation | |
| Take a chicken egg, missing a goose | Make the wrong decision | |
| Yawn in front of the stove | Tackle a case that one person cannot handle | |
| From a loaf of bread do not reach another loaf | To have difficulties with money, with life at your own expense | |
| Hoe without handle | Probably something completely useless [5] | |
| Look for hatchet | Trying to find excuses | |
| Here he is, with his flashlight | Finally find the opportunity to show your talents | |
| Hatchet with handle | Most likely, this is an idiom meaning just a whole, working thing [5] | |
| Spilled porridge cannot be collected back | If something is done, it is impossible to return back | |
| Stick a wheel | Obstruct the execution of others' plans | |
| Love is where money bags hang | Love can be bought | |
| Pull to take hold of the long end (ropes) | Try to get benefits | |
| Stand in your own light | Be proud, content with yourself | |
| He who hasn’t been to the stove will not look for other people in the stove | He who suspects others of evil intentions exposes himself in the habit of such | |
| Spin the world on the thumb | Enjoy all the benefits | |
| Tie a linen beard to Christ | Hide deception under the guise of piety | |
| To be forced to humble yourself in order to succeed in this world. | To be successful you must be cunning, dishonest | |
| Throw roses in front of pigs | Spend valuable on unworthy | |
| Fall asleep after the calf drowned | Actively act only after a disaster | |
| Be patient like a lamb | Be very patient | |
| She puts a blue cloak on her husband | She is cheating on her husband | |
| See that a black dog does not stick between them | When two women are together, even a barking dog will not add anything to the troubles that these women may come from | |
| One wind winds another spin | Both spread rumors, gossip | |
| Carry air (steam, light) in baskets | Wasting time | |
| Hold a candle to hell | Flatter and make friends indiscriminately | |
| Confess to hell | Divulging secrets to the enemy | |
| Pig cut through the belly | (Rash) a decision has been made that can no longer be reversed | |
| Two dogs will never agree on one bone. | To argue around a single topic, paragraph | |
| To be a scoop for (removing) foam | Parasitism | |
| What is the use of a beautiful plate if there is nothing to put on it? | Beauty is not valuable | |
| The fox and the crane entertained each other. | Two deceivers always remember their benefit [6] | |
| Blow in the ear | Rumor | |
| Chalk | Mark as a keepsake so as not to forget | |
| When the meat is roasted on a spit, rotate it | Some things, things require continuous attention and participation. | |
| You can’t turn the spit with him | He is not inclined to cooperate. | |
| Sit on the coals | To be impatient | |
| Fishing without a net | Benefit from other people's work |
Notes
- ↑ This title is inaccurate. The literal translation of the original name is “Dutch proverbs”.
- ↑ Rainer Hagen. Bruegel: The Complete Paintings . Taschen, 2000. pp. 96. ISBN 3-8228-5991-5 . Page 36-37.
- ↑ Dirt on the canvas in this place does not allow you to see the image of the dog.
- ↑ 1 2 The original adage is not set exactly.
- ↑ 1 2 The exact meaning of the saying has not been established.
- ↑ A hint of Aesop's fable "The Fox and the Crane ."
Links
- Rainer Hagen. Bruegel: The Complete Paintings / Rose-Marie Hagen. - Taschen, 2000. - P. 96. - ISBN ISBN 3-8228-5991-5 .
- Patrick De Rynck. How to Read a Painting: Lessons from the Old Masters. - New York: Abrams, 1963. - P. 379. - ISBN ISBN 0-8109-5576-8 .
- The Netherlandish Proverbs by Pieter Brueghel the Younger . Fleming Museum, University of Vermont (2004). Date of treatment May 18, 2007. Archived May 16, 2012.
- The Netherlandish Proverbs: An International Symposium on the Pieter Brueg (h) els, ed. by Wolfgang Mieder . University of Vermont. 2004.