Bruegel

The record

Pieter Bruegel, a sixteenth century Flemish painter, specialised in painting rich and detailed scenes of nature and country life. The Bruegel Tarot, with art created by Guido Zibordi Marchesi, offers a window into the life of a medieval Flemish village through proverbs and folk wisdom. The style of the Bruegel Tarot might seem familiar, as the artist also created the images for the Giotto Tarot. But in theme, the two decks are worlds apart. The Bruegel Tarot’s lively, rich and grotesque (but not as much as the Tarot of Dürer) peasant lifestyle is in complete contrast to the formal, stately figures of the Giotto. We see homely country scenes; a cat feeding her kittens in the Knave of Wands; a Chariot of a hay wagon, pulled by a donkey; many cards featuring stages of ploughing, sowing, harvesting, as every one of the cards is set outdoors. My favourite cards is the Strength card (numbered as XI), where a pious housewife calmly subdues a fierce-looking demon, armed only with a spare kerchief. Like most Tarot scenes, the main figures are in the foreground, but in the background lies an unusual wealth of detail. Sometimes trees and animals of the native landscape, more often people inte

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