The Magpie on the Gallows

The Magpie on the Gallows, painted in 1568 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, is a small oil on panel, almost square in format. Its most striking feature is the gallows at the centre, which splits the scene in two: on the right the space opens onto a cross and a watermill, while the left side feels more enclosed and shadowed. Perched on the gallows, almost exactly at the centre of the panel, sits a magpie. Below it, in a woodland clearing, three peasants dance to a bagpipe, while other figures in the lower left watch them; one of them relieves himself in the shade, a crude touch of the kind Bruegel often included. A second magpie rests on a rock beside an animal skull.

The gallows repays close attention. Its construction looks impossible: the bases of the posts seem to stand side by side, while the right arm of the crossbeam appears to recede into the distance, and the light does not quite match the shadows. The effect recalls later impossible-object images, though here it is achieved through a subtle sleight of perspective rather than an obvious trick. The background unfolds into a river valley with a town, a castle on a crag and a tower on another outcrop. Depth is built up gradually, from dense brown tones in the foreground through greenish midtones to pale blues and greys in the distance. Among the intertwined trees behind the dancers is a motif Bruegel had already used in an earlier drawing of bears playing in a forest.

The painting dates from the year after the Duke of Alba reached the Spanish Netherlands, sent by Philip II to crush the Dutch revolt. The gallows may point to the threat of execution facing those who preached the new Protestant doctrine, though why the picture was made, and for whom, remains unknown. It also plays on Netherlandish proverbs: dancing or defecating on the gallows meant mocking authority, and the magpie, seen as a gossip, stood for talk that could end in the noose. The work is counted among Bruegel's last, perhaps the very last, since he died in 1569. According to a tradition, he asked his wife to burn much of his work after his death, but told her to keep this panel for herself.

Painter

Pieter Brueghel the Elder

Date

1568

Medium

oil paint, panel

Dimensions

46 × 51 cm

Museum

Hessian State Museum Darmstadt, Darmstadt

Genre

genre art, landscape painting

Depicts

Latin cross, gallows, magpie, river

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