end Notes
Lost in Translation: Bruegel’s Tower of Babel
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1. Holy Bible, Genesis 11:9; Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen, chapter “The Antwerp Building Boom”, What Great Paintings Say. Vol 1, Taschen, Cologne, 2003 at 158.
2. Genesis 11:4.
3. The name is evidently based on a Hebrew word for confusion. The English word “babble” is often assumed to have a similar derivation, but the evidence for this is lacking.
4. Hagen, op cit at 162.
5. Quoted in Justin Marozzi, “Lost cities #1: Babylon – how war almost erased ‘mankind’s greatest heritage site” The Guardian (Australian edn), 8 August 2016 (accessed October 2019)
6. Hagen, op cit at 162.
7. Alexander Wied, Bruegel, English edn, Bay Books, Sydney 1980 at 120.
8. Wied, ibid.
9. The other version, undated, unsigned and smaller, is at Rotterdam, at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. That version shows a more ordered Tower, but lacks the vignette of the visiting dignitary: see the entry for the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.
10. This rocky outcrop is reminiscent of Bruegel’s Way to Calvary: see our article here.
11. See end note 29.
12. Once described by St Augustine “that other Babylon of the west”: quoted in Vytas Narusevicius, “The labours of translation: towards Utopia in Bruegel’s Tower of Babel”, Wreck, volume 4, number 1 (2013) 30.
13. Wied, op cit at 120.
14. S. A. Mansbach, “Pieter Bruegel's Towers of Babel”, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte Vol 45 no 1 (1982) 43, at 44.
15. A similar defecating figure appears in Bruegel’s The Magpie on the Gallows, and possibly in his Fall of Icarus: see Robert L Bonn, Painting Life: The Art of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Chaucer Press Books, New York, 2006, page xiv; and our article on Bruegel’s Fall of Icarus.
16. Timothy Foote et al, The World of Bruegel, Time-Life International, The Netherlands, 1971, at 95.
17. Hagen, op cit at 160.
18. Vasco da Gama, 1498.
19. Columbus, 1492.
20. Hagen, op cit at 160.
21. The Duke was the governor of the Netherlands. Extract quoted in Barbara A. Kaminska, “Come, let us make a city and a tower: Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Tower of Babel and the Creation of a Harmonious Community in Antwerp”, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, Vol 6, issue 2 (Summer 2014).
22. Mansbach, op cit at 46. On Bruegel’s religious beliefs, see also Jürgen Muller and Thomas Schauerte, Pieter Bruegel: The Complete Works, Taschen, Cologne, 2018 at 18.
23. Matthew 16:18, where Jesus says, “it is upon this rock that I will build my church”.
24. Kaminska, op cit.
25. Kaminska, op cit.
26. Narusevicius, op cit at 37.
27. A very similar crane actually operated on the Antwerp waterfront: Hagen, op cit at 161.
28. Bruegel’s evident expertise in depicting construction methods was presumably a factor in his late being commissioned to depict the stages in the building of the Antwerp-Brussels Canal. He died before this could be finished. See generally H. Arthur Klein, “Pieter Bruegel the Elder as a Guide to 16th-Century Technology”, Scientific American, Vol. 238, No. 3 (March 1978), pp. 134-141.
29. Wied, op cit at 124 attributes it to an optical illusion.
30. Wied, op cit at 124.
31. Foote, op cit at 96.
32. Philippe and Françoise Roberts-Jones, Bruegel, Flammarion, Paris 2012, at 249.
© Philip McCouat 2019, 2021. First published October 2019.
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1. Holy Bible, Genesis 11:9; Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen, chapter “The Antwerp Building Boom”, What Great Paintings Say. Vol 1, Taschen, Cologne, 2003 at 158.
2. Genesis 11:4.
3. The name is evidently based on a Hebrew word for confusion. The English word “babble” is often assumed to have a similar derivation, but the evidence for this is lacking.
4. Hagen, op cit at 162.
5. Quoted in Justin Marozzi, “Lost cities #1: Babylon – how war almost erased ‘mankind’s greatest heritage site” The Guardian (Australian edn), 8 August 2016 (accessed October 2019)
6. Hagen, op cit at 162.
7. Alexander Wied, Bruegel, English edn, Bay Books, Sydney 1980 at 120.
8. Wied, ibid.
9. The other version, undated, unsigned and smaller, is at Rotterdam, at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. That version shows a more ordered Tower, but lacks the vignette of the visiting dignitary: see the entry for the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.
10. This rocky outcrop is reminiscent of Bruegel’s Way to Calvary: see our article here.
11. See end note 29.
12. Once described by St Augustine “that other Babylon of the west”: quoted in Vytas Narusevicius, “The labours of translation: towards Utopia in Bruegel’s Tower of Babel”, Wreck, volume 4, number 1 (2013) 30.
13. Wied, op cit at 120.
14. S. A. Mansbach, “Pieter Bruegel's Towers of Babel”, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte Vol 45 no 1 (1982) 43, at 44.
15. A similar defecating figure appears in Bruegel’s The Magpie on the Gallows, and possibly in his Fall of Icarus: see Robert L Bonn, Painting Life: The Art of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Chaucer Press Books, New York, 2006, page xiv; and our article on Bruegel’s Fall of Icarus.
16. Timothy Foote et al, The World of Bruegel, Time-Life International, The Netherlands, 1971, at 95.
17. Hagen, op cit at 160.
18. Vasco da Gama, 1498.
19. Columbus, 1492.
20. Hagen, op cit at 160.
21. The Duke was the governor of the Netherlands. Extract quoted in Barbara A. Kaminska, “Come, let us make a city and a tower: Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Tower of Babel and the Creation of a Harmonious Community in Antwerp”, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, Vol 6, issue 2 (Summer 2014).
22. Mansbach, op cit at 46. On Bruegel’s religious beliefs, see also Jürgen Muller and Thomas Schauerte, Pieter Bruegel: The Complete Works, Taschen, Cologne, 2018 at 18.
23. Matthew 16:18, where Jesus says, “it is upon this rock that I will build my church”.
24. Kaminska, op cit.
25. Kaminska, op cit.
26. Narusevicius, op cit at 37.
27. A very similar crane actually operated on the Antwerp waterfront: Hagen, op cit at 161.
28. Bruegel’s evident expertise in depicting construction methods was presumably a factor in his late being commissioned to depict the stages in the building of the Antwerp-Brussels Canal. He died before this could be finished. See generally H. Arthur Klein, “Pieter Bruegel the Elder as a Guide to 16th-Century Technology”, Scientific American, Vol. 238, No. 3 (March 1978), pp. 134-141.
29. Wied, op cit at 124 attributes it to an optical illusion.
30. Wied, op cit at 124.
31. Foote, op cit at 96.
32. Philippe and Françoise Roberts-Jones, Bruegel, Flammarion, Paris 2012, at 249.
© Philip McCouat 2019, 2021. First published October 2019.
Return to HOME