Book art created for my Illustration exam back in January 2021. The proportions of the figures are intentionally weird because our teacher asked us to be very faithful to the pareidolia pictures that inspired each one of them. A video with a focus on its details can be watched here.
If you like my art, you can find it also here. Don’trepost it without crediting me.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Magpie on the Gallows (1568)
“Bruegel’s painting was created the year after Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba, arrived in the Netherlands, sent by the Spanish king, Philip II to suppress the Dutch Revolt. The gallows may represent the threat of execution of those preaching the new Protestant doctrine, and the painting may allude to several Netherlandish proverbs. There is a direct allusion to the Netherlandish proverbs of dancing or shitting on the gallows, meaning a mocking of the state. It also alludes to the belief that magpies are gossips, and that gossip leads to hangings. And that the way to the gallows leads through pleasant meadows. It is not known why or for whom the picture was painted. Its date of 1568 makes this painting one of Bruegel’s last works before his death in 1569; indeed, perhaps his final work. Bruegel asked his wife to burn some of his pictures on his death, but told her to keep the Magpie on the Gallows for herself.”
