Describe the characteristics of the Context in Netherlandish Proverbs's History.
Proverbs were very popular in Bruegel's time and before; a hundred years before Bruegel's painting, illustrations of proverbs had been popular in the Flemish books of hours. A number of collections were published, including Adagia, by the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus. The French writer François Rabelais employed significant numbers in his novel Gargantua and Pantagruel, completed in 1564.The Flemish artist Frans Hogenberg made an engraving illustrating 43 proverbs in around 1558, roughly the same time as Bruegel's painting. The work is very similar in composition to Bruegel's and includes certain proverbs (like the Blue Cloak) which also feature prominently in Netherlandish Proverbs. By depicting literal renditions of proverbs in a peasant setting, both artists have shown a "world turned upside down".Bruegel himself had painted several minor paintings on the subject of proverbs including Big Fish Eat Little Fish (1556) and Twelve Proverbs (1558), but Netherlandish Proverbs is thought to have been his first large-scale painting on the theme.
Netherlandish Proverbs books of hours Adagia Erasmus François Rabelais Frans Hogenberg Gargantua and Pantagruel engraving humanist the Blue Cloak Desiderius Erasmus