In the Belly of the World

On Pieter Bruegel’s Battle between Carnival and Lent and Messir Gaster of François Rabelais*

Edd. György E. Szönyi, Attila Kiss, Márta Baróti-Gál: European Iconography East & West 2: The Iconography of the Fantastic. Szeged: JATEPress, 2001 (Papers in English & American Studies 10 / Studia Poetica. XI), pp. 105-120.

Allow me to start with the con­clu­s­ion: The fool with the torch and the wandering pair has entered the mouth of Baal, Belenus, Polyphemos or some other giant. They have descended down the throat and into the guts of this giant and are now standing by the navel, which is the well. The man dressed in purple is asking —Lanterne si el? (Do you lantern?), the woman with the lantern answers —Bouteille! (Bottle).

The Battle between Carnival and Lent from 1559, now in the mu­se­um in Vienna, is one of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s earliest dated and signed paint­ings, and at the same time one of his most enigmatic. The theme is nevertheless self-evident. Staged on an upward-tilted ground plane with a high horizon, it depicts a grotesquely comic tournament between a Bacchic Shrovetide on the left and a Quixotic Lent on the right.
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Pieter Bruegel. Battle between Carnival and Lent (1559).

As has been observed by all art his­to­rians, the theme is not new at all. The year before, in 1558, Hieronymus Cock issued a print from a draw­ing by Frans Hogenberg with the same ‘title’ and theme: “Den vetten Vastelavont met alle syn Gasten compt hier bestriden die mager Vasten”.
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Frans Hogenberg. Battle Between Carnival and Lent. Copper 1558.

The earliest pictorial ex­amp­le of this kind of battle is a larger paint­ing by Hieronymus Bosch, which is do­cu­ment­ed as belonging to the Spanish Court (Glück 1955, 46). Four ‘copies’ of this com­po­si­tion seem to have sur­vi­ved. One of these, a grisaille in horizontal format, for­merly in the Thyssen Collection in Lugano (Illustr.). The same com­po­si­tion is also to be found in the Museum Mayer van der Bergh in Antwerp (No. 24), and in a pri­va­te col­lec­tion in London.
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Striden mellan Karnevalen och Fastan. Centraal Noordbrabants Museum, Hertogenbosch.

Altered and with several ad­di­tions, the same generic com­po­si­tion is also to be seen in the Rijksmu­se­um in Amsterdam (No. A 1673; Glück 1932, 263f.). In all of these com­po­si­tions the Bacchic fi­gure is sitting on a table blowing a bagpipe. The table, “le rondeel”, bears a striking resemblance to the table carried behind the “Prince Carnival” in Bruegel’s pic­ture. But on the whole, in these later com­po­si­tions only the theme is the same as in Bruegel’s version, the in­di­vi­du­al fi­gures and actions being sig­ni­fi­cantly dif­fer­ent.
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Hieronymus Bosch: Striden mellan Karnevalen och Fastan. Olja på panel 74 × 238 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Like all previous pic­tures of this theme, Bruegel’s com­po­si­tion is dualistic, a duality which almost turns all the pic­tures of this theme into diptychs. As in the case of Hogenberg and the anonymous Bosch follower, the left side is consecrated to the Bacchic abundance of Carnival, and the right side to the mourning and suffering of Lent, a prin­ciple which is maintained by the smaller copies made after Bruegel’s com­po­si­tion.1
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Pieter Bruegel (follower): Battle between Carnival and Lent. Boston Museum of Fine Arts. 49.82

But contrary to all preceding pic­tures of the theme, the main movement in Bruegel’s Vienna pic­ture from 1559 is produced by a huge circle of people engaged in dif­fer­ent activities, culminating with the tournament of the two main characters and their assistants in the foreground. This movement—and this shows the ori­gi­nality of Bruegel’s com­po­si­tion—est­abl­ishes the pic­ture as a wheel of fortune, circulating around a central hub where we see a well, some fishmongers, and two persons led by a fool with a torch; essentially, however, the geometrical centre of the pic­ture is empty, un­na­tur­ally highlighted by an unknown source.
     As opposed to Bruegel’s Children’s Games and the Netherlandish Proverbs, the groups of people are not isolated from each other. It is as if ev­eryone is aware of the activity of the neighbouring groups. Also, most fi­gures are engaged in activities pertaining to ex­chan­ge: such as playing, buying and selling, begging and giving, and watching and performing, which corresponds to the battling central fi­gures’ ex­chan­ge between abundance and need. This theme of circulation is repeated in a number of smaller circles and wheels inside and outside the great dynamic wheel of the com­po­si­tion, most notably in the groups of dancers, beggars and playing children, who are evenly distributed upon the pic­ture plane.
     The obvious dichotomy of the pic­ture has tempted many interpreters to see a conflict between Pro­tes­tants and Catholics, or between Vices and Virtues, weighting Bruegel’s own sympathies or antipathies variously. This ty­pe of interpretation commenced with Charles de Tolnay in 1935. Tolnay interpreted the pic­ture as a fight between virtues (i.e. the Catholics on the right side) and vices (i.e. the Pro­tes­tants on the left side), the overall theme of the pic­ture being just a mere pretext to depict good and bad morals.2
     This interpretation was rejected, in my opinion on solid grounds, by Carl Gustav Strid­beck, who saw in the com­po­si­tion an equally pessimistic criticism of Catholics and Pro­tes­tants, and who consequently interprets the pic­ture as being a critique of religious fa­na­t­ic­ism as the cause of all the miseries in the Low Countries. But, according to Strid­beck, it is not only a critique of religious fa­na­t­ic­ism, but also a critique of immoral behaviour, which is said to have flourished under the disguise of religious feasts.3
     Gotthard Jedlicka, on the contrary, did not interpret the pic­ture as carrying any sig­ni­fi­cant moral im­pli­ca­tions at all. For Jedlicka, writing in 1938, in this pic­ture Bruegel “depicts the life, the customs and the manners of the adult citizens of a town during the carnival feast” (Jedlicka 1938, 79f.). This ‘folkloric’ interpretation4 is repeated in 1953 by Robert Genaille,5 and finally in 1955 and 1966 by Fritz Grossmann, who writes that the sub­ject for Bruegel did give him:

“[…] an occasion to depict in detail the Netherlandish Shrovetide customs and, more important, to paint a pic­ture of human life generally with its gay and sombre sides, but with greater emphasis on the tragic aspects: poverty, blindness, incurable sickness, death, and on sin […].” (Grossmann 1973, 190‑91)

Today most scholars nevertheless generally agree with Marijnissen (1973, 30), Roberts-Jones (1997, 114), and Gibson that this can not convey the sum of Bruegel’s in­ten­tions with the pic­ture.6 Thus, with a slightly dif­fer­ent emphasis than that of his predecessors, this is what Gibson convincingly argues in his monograph from 1977, at the same time reconciling the dif­fer­ent ty­pes of interpretations:

“But Bruegel’s pic­tur­e was undoubtedly intended as more than a compendium of folklore and practices; like the Netherlandish Proverbs, it possesses a deeper significance. The moral license which inevitably prevailed at carnival time, despite repeated efforts to control it, was condemned by many preachers and satirists of the period. The same attitude is perhaps reflected in the signboard suspended from the tavern at the left in Bruegel’s pic­tur­e, bearing the image of a boat with the words ’In the Blue Boat’. The name ’Blue Boat’ or ’Blue Barge’ frequently designated the popular societies which helped to organise carnival revelries, but also referred to drunkards, gamblers and others who squandered time and mon­ey in carousing. Their kind, in fact, was depicted in an engraving, the Blue Boat, which Cock pub­lish­ed in 1559, purportedly after Bosch. It might be assumed that in contrast to Carnival, the Lenten half of the pic­ture presents the virtuous Christian life, as some scholars have suggested. However, we cannot be too certain. The inscription on Hogenberg’s etching of this sub­ject invites all men to the carnival feast because ’ev­erybody likes to smear himself with fat’, but it also recommends that those who prefer cheap food, like fish, can easily earn a reputation for sobriety during Lent. Erasmus and others complained about pious practices performed only for show, and it is not impossible that Bruegel’s pic­ture has a similar significance: false piety is no better than dissolute living.” (Gibson 1977, 84-85).

The now forgotten French an­ti­qua­ri­an Gras­set d’Or­cet, who could hardly have been familiar with Bruegel’s com­po­si­tion, wrote a series of essays on Ra­be­lais and the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili in the 1880s. His thesis is as interesting as it is weird and bizarre, but I do not intend to dwell upon this. Nevertheless, it is ne­ces­sa­ry to point out two main concepts in Grasset d’Orcet’s much more complex and dubious argumentation. The first is that the Hyp­nero­to­mach­ia is a grimoire, i.e. a grammar, for a (postulated) late-Goliard fraternity of Saint-Gilles, formed by the surviving medieval guilds of scribes, illuminators and painters. Secondly, it is a grammar because the guilds communicated, still according to Gras­set d’Or­cet, using the forms of charades and rebuses. These are always and exclusively to be read in French; the vowels are to be ignored alto­geth­er, and on the basis of the consonants a new meaning is formed if read phonetically. The charades were composed as couplets, in which each person or fi­gure should be ‘read’ as forming a line of eight syllables ending with an L on the last or penultimate syllable. The rebuses and blazons, which are simpler, did not have to end with an L in the last syllable, but were only to be read phonetically according to the rules of blazon. The best way to explain this is maybe to give some ex­amp­les:

Seau à La MaiN, gives SaLoMoN,7

VieRGau LPN gives VRai GiLPiN8

and so forth.

Grasset d’Orcet argues that the “lanternois” to which Ra­be­lais refers so frequently in his work is this very method of speaking with a double tongue and that Hyp­nero­to­mach­ia in this lanternois reads: GRé, aMouR SonNGe iL PoiNg, i.e., grimoire saint Gilpin.9
     It is, however, ex­tre­mely difficult to follow Gras­set d’Or­cet in his rea­son­ing and equally easy to criticise his arguments. Not only is it very difficult to apply his method, but, more seriously, the deciphering seems inevitably prone to confirming their own mode of reading, and regarding the deciphering of Gras­set d’Or­cet I would say—as the Egyptologist Erik Iversen said about the hieroglyphics of Hor­apol­lo—that either have we not been told the whole truth or the ‘cryptography’ proposed is simp­ly an issue of over-interpretation.
     But as I said—and this deserves to be emphasised—the point here is notwhether Gras­set d’Or­cet is right or wrong, but rather if his interpretations of the Hyp­nero­to­mach­ia and Ra­be­lais are able to give a productive key to the otherwise enigmatic and hitherto unpenetrated iconography of, for instance, Bruegel.
     A curious coincidence made me believe that this could be the case. And my earlier dull reading of Gras­set d’Or­cet took a sudden twist of renewed interest when I, busy with Bruegel, stumbled onto a short passage en passant in an essay by Gras­set d’Or­cet where he comments upon the famous plaisanterie of Henry IV (that each Frenchmen should have a chicken in the pot ev­ery day) was a rebus for saying the word “people” (peuple), as opposed to the ari­sto­cra­cy. Gras­set d’Or­cet stated that this anagram for “people” pot-poule (chicken in the pot), was most frequently drawn as the foot of a chicken, un pied de poule (Grasset d’Orcet 1983, 1:212). In fact, in the lower centre of Bruegel’s pic­ture there is a chicken’s foot.
     This representation of a chicken foot is not espe­cial­ly common in the history of art, but it is sometimes seen in the foregrounds of—especially—crucifixion scenes. In The Cruci­fixion from 1617 by Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Joos de Momper (now in the Museum of Art, Buda­pest)—sup­po­sedly after a dis­ap­peared ori­gi­nal by Pieter Bruegel the Elder—there is a foot of a chicken in the foreground of the pic­ture. I have, however, noted its existence in Bruegel’s Triumph of Death (Prado), where it is vi­si­ble to the left of the coffin in the central fore­ground. The same is also the case in the draw­ing (and the following engraving) of Invidia from 1557.10
     This of course is not par­ti­cul­arly re­vo­lu­tionary, nor could it be said to explain anything more fun­da­men­tal about Bruegel’s iconography, but it nevertheless aroused my curiosity, and when, in an­oth­er of Grasset d’Orcet’s essay’s, I read the following explanation of the names “Polia” and “Poliphile” concerning Colonna’s Hyp­nero­to­mach­ia, I was truly stunned. The passage reads:

“In Greek Polia means ‘having white hair’ or ‘of old age’, strange name for a young girl. But Polia is no woman, it is a pulley (poulie), and Poliphile is an­oth­er. The two make the pair, and the pair is linked by a chain or mesh, forming a mitt or a hoist (palan) which is used for lifting burdens on board a ship, stones on to scaffoldings, or, simp­ly buckets from wells. Most of the col­lec­tions of Goliard prints and the old paint­ings represent a woman and a well, this is Poliphile; the girl is holding a bucket in her hands (seau à la main), this is Salomon, and the other is holding a chain wound around the pulley. We will find the explanation of this mystery on the first plate of Poliphile in a dif­fer­ent form, […] Indeed, ev­ery mitt or hoist is at least composed by a pair, that is, a fixed pulley (poulie fixe) and a loose pulley (poulie folle) of which the pair constitute the hoist. […] The initiating knight was the fixed pulley and the ap­prent­ice the loose pulley, and the two formed the pairpalan.”11

I am still unable to see how this description could pos­sib­ly apply to the first plate (or plates) in the Hyp­nero­to­mach­ia, but the more it struck me as being an exact description of the central scene in Bruegel’s paint­ing, and all the more remarkable as it would, probably, have been unin­ten­tional. This co­in­cidence between two independent sources, the central scene in Bruegel’s paint­ing and Grasset d’Orcet’s reading of the Hyp­nero­to­mach­ia and Ra­be­lais, could, in my view, prove to be a promising approach to the iconography of Bruegel’s fantastic pic­ture.
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Pieter Bruegel. Striden mellan Karnevalen och Fastan (1559). Detalj.

In Bruegel’s paint­ing we see a townscape (polis) with a lot of people (pollys) fighting (polemia), in that they are wandering round in circles (poleo) around a central nave or axis – polos. And from Du Cange we know that in Bruegel’s time polia or poulie also signified being dressed in rags (Du Cange 1954, 4: 394). If the central female fi­gure at the well is really intended as de­scrib­ed by Gras­set d’Or­cet above, then the com­po­si­tion as a whole could very well have been made upon this concept of polia and the fraternity of an ini­tia­tor and an ap­prent­ice.

In chapter 56 of Ra­be­lais’ Fourth Book, Pan­ta­gru­­el’s merry company of sea voyagers approaches the island of Gaster as the frozen words suddenly melt and they hear a combat between the Arimaspians and the Nephelibates. The term Arimaspians refers to legendary one-eyed people (from Herodot IV, 27 and Pliny VII, 2), as the belly-worshipping Polyphemos, and the Nephelibates (which is a neologism invented by Ra­be­lais) denotes those who walk on clouds. In this chapter Ra­be­lais explains some rules for heraldry, but, more importantly, the French expressions given by Ra­be­lais in the heading of the chapter, “les parolles gelées” and “de motz de gueule”, signal that we are dealing with the sayings of Gilles and the words of Golia—if we are to adopt Grasset d’Orcet’s method of reading—gelé, gueule, golia and gilles being phonetical equivalents and thus interchangeable. This reading is all the more plausible since, according to Du Cange, “gillo”, “gelo” and “gellus” mean both frozen and bottle (Du Cange 1954, 3:69), and to hear the word of the divine bottle is, it will be recalled, the very purpose of Pan­ta­gru­­el’s and Pan­ur­ge’s travels.
     Ra­be­lais writes that Master Gaster cannot hear because he was created with­out ears, and that he only speaks by signs.

“[Master Gaster] do’s not hear; and as the Egyptians said, That Harpocrates the God of Silence nam’d Sigalion in Greek was Astoné, that is, with­out a Mouth; so Gaster was created with­out Ears, even like the Image of Jupiter was created in Candia. He only speaks by Signs, […].” (Ra­be­lais 1967, 3:205).

That Gaster was created with­out ears is an allusion to the French proverb “the hungry stomach has no ears”. In the world of Ra­be­lais “he only speaks by signs” means that he speaks Lanternois, the language of the lantern. Except for the woman by the well, there are almost no ears to be seen in the pic­ture. After a closer look at some of the fi­gures, one might indeed suspect our artist of putting some effort and a great deal of inventiveness into concealing the ears, as if he wished to allude to Master Gaster.
     On the island of Master Gaster, the company observes “two sorts of troublesom and too officious Apparitors”, the Engastrimythes and the Gastrolatres. The first ones are ventriloquists, soothsayers and enchanters, whom we identify on the right side of Bruegel’s battle. As for the others, the Gastrolaters, Ra­be­lais gives an ex­tre­mely precise description of them on the left side of the pic­ture:

“As for the Gastrolaters, they stuck close to one an­oth­er in Knots and Gangs. Some of them merry, wanton, and soft as so many Milksops; others lowring, grim, dogged, demure and crabbed, all idle, mortal Foes to Business, spending half their Time sleeping, and the rest in doing nothing, a Rent-charge and dead unne­ces­sa­ry Weight on the Earth, as Hesiod saith; afraid (as we judg’d) of offending or lessening their Paunch. Others were mask’d, disguis’d, and so oddly dress’d that ‘twould have done you good to have seen them.” (Ra­be­lais 1967, 3:208).

Suddenly, after this description, Ra­be­lais comes up with a strange metaphor:

“There’s a Saying, and several Ancient Sages write, That the skill of Nature appears wonderful in the Pleasure which she seems to have taken in the Confi­guration of Sea-shells, so great is their Variety in Figures, Colours, Streaks, and inimitable Shapes, I protest, the Variety we perceiv’d in the Dresses of the Gastrolatrous Coquillons was not less.” (Ra­be­lais 1967, 3:208–209).

Not only is this a perfect description of Bruegel’s paint­ing, Bruegel also designates the people by their proper name by means of the eggshells and seashells (in French: coquille) evenly distributed over the pic­ture plane, the eggshells to the left and the seashells to the right. Gras­set d’Or­cet also has an explanation for this. He says that “coquillons” referred in par­ti­cul­ar to masons, as opposed to the escribouilles or Engastrimythes, who were clerks or scribes. The special hieroglyph for masons was a snail (limaçon), which gave them their name, coquillons or shell-people (Grasset d’Orcet 1983, 1:198). Grasset d’Orcet continues to explain, still with himself as the sole authority, that during the reign of Louis XIII they were called “caquerolles”, the Burgundian name for snail. But caque, we note, also means cask and caquelon means earthenware pots, both of which are exclusively located on the left side of Bruegel’s pic­ture. Again this reading is curiously confirmed by Gras­set d’Or­cet, who states that the hieroglyph for caquerolles was queue écureuils (Ibid., 1:212–13), squirrel tails, likewise depicted on the cripples on the left side.
   On the right side, however, are exclusively baskets located (and no earthen­ware pots); baskets, which in French are called “abeilles” or “cor­beilles”, are also very common and sig­ni­fi­cant in many of Bruegel’s paint­ings and prints. If we are to follow this comparative approach, baskets should correspond to Ra­be­lais’ Nephelibates or Gryphes, who, Gras­set d’Or­cet argues, constituted the scribes’ and illuminators’ guild, as opposed to the masons or Gastrolatres. But both these guilds were under the mother-lodge of Golia or Gilles. The monogram of the Nephelibates or brouillards is said to have been a blue heart (cœur bleu), which phonetically corresponds to a basket (corbeille) or a raven (corbeau) but is prin­cipally written as a square obelisk (carré obélisque), all of which reads écribouilles (Ibid., 1:282). Ra­be­lais describes Master Gaster in the following terms:

“The Satyrist’s Sentence, that affirms Master Gaster to be Master of all Arts, is true. With him peacefully resided old Goody Penia alias Poverty, the Mother of the Nine Muses, on whom Porus the Lord of Plenty for­merly begot Love, that Noble Child, the Mediator of Heaven and Earth.” (Ra­be­lais 1967, 3:205).

These dualities of Abundance and Poverty, Love and War, seem in many respects to parallel the theme of the Hyp­nero­to­mach­ia, which represents a love-war dream, as well as Ra­be­lais’ battle between the Engastrimythes and the Gastrolatres, that is, between the mason-architects and the scribe-painters. Mythology tells us that Eros was begotten from the amorous fight between Porus or Abundance and Penia or Suffering. Just as Eros is the mediator of heaven and earth, so Discordia, or Eris, the Greek goddess of discord and fights, is the mediator of heaven and earth.
     But in Bruegel’s pic­ture we see no heaven. We only see the earth, and we may even see the earth in a metaphorical sense, that is, as the vanities of earthly things. However, on the basis of the pic­tures’s thematic similarities with Ra­be­lais’ concept of “Messere Gaster” and the Battle between the Gastrolaters and the Engastrimythes, I will in the following argue that the com­po­si­tional device of the ex­tre­mely high horizon is due to the fact that Bruegel’s fight is a vision of the inside of the stomach.
     On a formal level, certain details seem to support such a reading: the strange lighting of the pic­ture and, most notably, the signboard suspended from the tavern on the left side of Bruegel’s pic­tur, placed like the sig­ni­fi­cant signboard in the Netherlandish Proverbs. This signboard says: “dit is ind blav shvt”, that is “This is in the Blue Boat”. The blue boat is right­ly to be interpreted as a sign of the popular societies which helped to organize carnival revelries (Gibson 1977, 84). However, the pic­ture on the signboard does not represent a boat, it represents a hull—in French, carène, which denotes any concavity, for instance a stomach. Applying the above-mentioned rules for blazons, carène (hull) is identical with carême (Lent), as well as the goddess Carna, who, according to Gras­set d’Or­cet, is a goddess parallel to Master Gaster of Ra­be­lais.12 This could be the meaning of the signboard “The World Inside Out”, which corresponds to the meaning of “The World Upside Down” in The Netherlandish Proverbs. This ‘Inside Out’ is further emphasised by the vomiting man in the window to the left of the signboard.

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Detalj från Pieter Bruegels Striden mellan Karnevalen och Fastan (1559). Konsthistoriska Museet i Wien.

     A passage in the second book of Ra­be­lais supports this reading. In chapter 33, when an expedition is being equipped to travel into the intestines of Pan­ta­gru­­el, we first get a digression about the benefits warm baths being due to the borax, sulphur, alum and saltpetre that rise from the “intestines” of the earth. These substances are curiously similar to those used by Ulys­ses to blind the Cyclops Polyphemos. Ra­be­lais then describes how they made great copper balls, “and in such sort, that they did open in the midst, and shut with a spring”. And he continues: “Into one of them entered one of his men, carrying a Lanterna and a torch lighted, and so Pan­ta­gru­­el swallowed him down like a little pill: when they were in his stomack, ev­ery one undid his spring, and came out of their cabins” (Ra­be­lais 1967, 1:334). “Carrying a lantern and a torch lighted” is ex­act­ly what the central group is doing in Bruegel’s paint­ing.
     In the final chapter of Pan­ta­gru­­el, “The Conclusion of this present Book, and the Excuse of the Author”, Juvenal is quoted: “Et Curios simulant, sed bacchanalia vivunt”, which applies per­fect­ly to Bruegel’s dualistic com­po­si­tion. Immediately following this quote, Ra­be­lais describes how Juvenal’s sentence was written:

“You may read it in great letters, in the colouring of their red snowts, and gulching bellies as big as a tun, unlesse it be when they perfume themselves with sulphur.” (Ra­be­lais 1967, 1:336).13

This might very well be an allusion to the purple-coloured ma­nu­scripts de luxe, which, Gras­set d’Or­cet claims, indicated that they were made by a purple master, the highest degree of the Goliards, with their “gulching bellies as big as a tun”. The phrase “gulching bellies as big as a tun” is Urquhart’s fantastic translation of “ventres à poulaine”. “Poulaine”, the bows of Gothic shoes or the bow of a ship, according to our unorthodox authority, represents the ancient God Belenus or Pol, in Greek Apollo (Grasset d’Orcet 1983, 1:298), all of whom are versions of the more grotesque Master Gaster.
     A “gulching belly” was also painted in Bruegel’s pic­ture. In the lower right-hand corner (a customary site for the artist’s sig­na­tu­re) Bruegel had ori­gi­nally painted a dying man lying on the ground with an abnormally swollen belly. This was painted over later, perhaps at the behest of a squeamish owner (cf. Ertz 1997, 336–342). And in my opinion, this ‘sig­na­tu­re’ seems to be a rather precise expression of the idea of Porus and Penia, of abundance and need, joined in the macabre vision of Master Gaster.
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Pieter Breughel. Striden mellan Karnevalen och Fastan. Detalj av det nedre högra hörnet.

In the other corner, at the lower left of the pic­ture, and as if corresponding to the dying man, the two strangely dressed gamblers are depicted. I am not capable of interpreting the significance of their masques, but the fact that they are shown playing dice at a place as sig­ni­fi­cant as where the dying man with the swollen belly is depicted, suggests that Bruegel ‘signed’ the left part of the pic­ture with the name of “Gilles”. According to Du Cange, “Gille” was the designation for gambling with dices or miming: “GILLA, a Gallico Gille, Fraus, mendacium, illusio; unde pro Ludus aleatorius vel mimicus.” (Du Cange 1954, 3:69).

The pair in the centre of Bruegel’s pic­ture are carrying a lighted torch and a lantern, ex­act­ly in the same way as Ra­be­lais’ describes the entry into the stomach of Pan­ta­gru­­el. One of them is dressed in a purple robe with a cord and is carrying a sword. He has his arm around the waist of the white-headed woman holding the lantern. According to Gras­set d’Or­cet, purple or pairpalan signify the cult of pairs or the brotherhood of arms (Grasset d’Orcet 1983, 1:296), and Gras­set d’Or­cet continues: “[…] the knights of the Middle Ages chained themselves in pairs with an iron collar. […] The Latins called it cingulum, in French it was called sangle. The most ancient name of the Free Masons is singlepans or panse sanglée.” This of course reads Saint Gilpins, and if we take a look at the knight with the sword, we see that he is dressed in a purple, or blood-coloured, robe, a ceinture sanglé, corresponding to how the “gulching bellies” of Ra­be­lais were coloured in red and “perfumed themselves with sulphur”. The armed pair in Bruegel’s pic­ture is, however, not chained. Nonetheless he wears a robe and belt and has his arm around the waist of his “Poliphile”, which in French is called ceinturé. The French word ceinture means both robe and belt, and is the vernacular equivalent of the Latin term cingulum.
     From his reading of Ra­be­lais, Gras­set d’Or­cet deduces that the sign of recognition between the pair of painters was that one asked “Lanterne si el?”—Old French for “Do you lantern”—to which question the other should answer “Bouteille”. This reads “Loin terre ciel?”, “The earth, is it far from heaven?”, to which the answer is “bout œil”, that is, “see for yourself” or “take a look”.14

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Pieter Bruegel. Striden mellan Karnevalen och Fastan (1559). Detalj.

     If my interpretation on the basis of Gras­set d’Or­cet is at all plausible, then this could very well be the mute dialogue between the two central fi­gures, the pair of painters walking the illuminated earth behind the fool. In my opinion the atmosphere of the pic­ture, the ex­tre­mely high horizon, the puppet-like doings of the people, and the presence of freedom and necessity likewise encourage such a reading.
     Grasset d’Orcet states, as usual with­out any argument what­so­ever, that this dialogue is the con­clu­s­ion of Ra­be­lais’ book and that it is found throughout western and eastern Freemasonry. The rules for being accepted into the painters’ guild are found by Gras­set d’Or­cet in one of the plates in Les songes drôlatiques, which according to him reads:

“One must compose a work that proves / That no other has done the same. / It must be composed in French / On contemporary matters. / On this plate ev­ery line must rhyme with poule. / This rhyme is used so that in finding it / The mason is able to read what is on the plate. / The purple aims to destroy Rome. / For this he search to win the kings to the Goliards. / He who calls himself purple guarantees this; / May the couples appreciate the sign that he gives of this. / He must make a plate that shows that he is capable. / If his rebus merits it, may the document be signed and sealed. / This document must be an image decorated by the play of the brush. / He writes to Febvre if he has any complains. / The purple has to offer to pay the costs of the seal. / The goal is to develop a taste for the fantastic.”15

If this approach to “The Battle between Carnival and Lent” is correct in its main theme, then this paint­ing of Bruegel could be such a document.

Cited Literature

Avalon, Jean 1955. “Bataille de Carneval et de Carême”. Æsculape 37/3: 67–71.

Du Cange, Charles du Fresne 1954. Glossarium mediae et infirmae latinitatis … cum supplementis integris D.P. Carpenterii Adelungii, aliorum, suisque digessit G.A.L. Henschel ... Graz: Akad. Dr.- u. Verlagsanstalt.

Ertz, Klaus 1997. Pieter Breug­hel der Jüngere – Jan Brueghel der Ältere. Flämische Malerei um 1600 Tradition und Fortschritt. Wien and Essen: Luca Verlag.

Gaignebet, Claude 1972. “Le Combat de Carneval et de Carême”. Annales: Economies, sociétés, civilisations. 28/2: 313–345.

Genaille, Robert 1935. Bruegel. Paris: Éd. Tisne.

Gibson, Walter S. 1977. Bruegel. London: Thames & Hudson.

Glück, Gustav 1932. “Die Darstellungen des Karnevals und der Fasten von Bosch und Bruegel”, Gedankboek A. Vermeylen. ’s-Gravenhage: 263–268; --- 1955. Das große Bruegel-Werk. Wien-München: Verlag Anton Schroll.

Grasset d’Orcet, C.-S. 1983. Materiaux cryptographiques. In B. Allieu and A. Barthélemy (eds.). Paris: n.e.

Greco-Kaufmann, Heidy 1992. “‘Kampf des Karnevals gegen die Fasten’. Pieter Bruegels Ge­mäl­de und die Diskussion um Karneval und Lachkultur”. Euphorion: Zeitschrift für Literaturgeschichte. 86/3: 319-332.

Grossmann, Fritz 1973. Bruegel, The Paintings. London: Phaidon.

Halberlandt, Arthur 1933. “Das Faschingsbild des Peter Bruegel d. Ä.”. Zeitschrift für Volkskunde. 43/3: 237–249, 277.

Härting, Ursula 1996: “De subventione pauperum – Zu Pieter Bruegels Caritas mit den sieben Werken der Barmherzigkeit von 1559”. Edd. Jan de Jong, Mark Meadow, Herman Roodenburg, Frits Scholten, Pieter Bruegel. Nederlands kunsthistorisch jaarboek. 47: 107-123.

Jedlicka, Gotthard 1938. Pieter Bruegel. Der Maler in seiner Zeit. Erlenbach-Zürich-Leipzig: Eugen Rentsch Verlag.

Marijnissen Roger H. 1973. Bruegel. Brussels: Arcade.

Moser, Dietz-Rüdiger 1993. “Mit Pieter Brueghel in die Fastenzeit. Ein neuentdeckter Kupferstich be­stä­tigt die rein christliche Ausrichtung seines Ge­mäl­des vom ‘Kampf zwischen Fastnacht und Fastenzeit’ im Wiener Kunsthistorischen Museum”. Euphorion: Zeitschrift für Literatur­geschichte. 87/2-3:269-286.

Ra­be­lais, François 1948. Œuvres complètes de François Ra­be­lais. Texte établi, annoté et présenté par Jean Plattard. Paris: Le club français du Livre.

--- 1967. Gargantua and Pan­ta­gru­­el, transl. by Sir Thomas Urquhart and Peter LeMotteux. New York: AMS Press.

Renger, Konrad 1988. “Karneval und Fasten. Bilder vom Fressen und Hungern”, Weltkunst. Aktuelle Zeitschrift für Kunst und Antiquitäten, 58/3: 184–189.

Roberts-Jones, Philippe & Françoise 1997. Pier­re Bruegel l’Ancien. Paris: Flammarion.

Rumpf, Marianne 1986. “Der „Kampf des Karnevals gegen die Fasten“ von Pieter Bruegel d. Älteren. Volkskundlich – kulturhistorisch – medizingeschichtlich interpretiert”. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 40/2: 125–157.

Strid­beck, Carl Gustav 1956. Bruegelstudien. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell.

--- 1956b. “Der Streit des Karnevals mit den Fasten”. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. 19/1-2: 96-109.

Swarzenski, Hanns 1951. “The Battle Between Carnival and Lent”. Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, 49: 1–11.

Tolnay, Charles de 1935. Pier­re Bruegel l’Ancien. Bruxelles: Nouvelle Société d’Éditions.

NOTES


*) This paper was originally given at the conference “The Iconography of the Fan­tas­tic” in Szeged, Hungary, July 1998. I would like to express my gratitude to the Carlsberg Foundation for a grant in 1999 to continue my research on the subjects here discussed. I would also like to thank Stacey Cozart for her kind assistan­ce with the English.
1) That is: a Boston version in the Museum of Fine Arts, one in the Collection Joly, Zedelgreen by Pieter Breughel the Younger, and one copy after Bruegel or Breughel in the Collection Coppée in Brussels (cf. Swarzenski 1951, 4-6; Ertz 1997, 336-38; Glück 1955, 46-48). Swarzenski argues that the “Battle between Carnival and Lent” in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is made by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and thus corresponds to the Vienna picture as the other ‘details’ in paintings and prints, i.e. “Ourson and Valentin”, “The Marriage of Mopsus and Nisa” and “Les Gueux”, but Swarzenski’s attribution is rejected by all authorities.
2) “Dans La Bataille de Carneval et Carême le thême du fabliau n’est qu’un prétexte: en vérité les domaines du bien et du mal, de la vertu et du vice s’entrepénétrent au point que des enfants jouent près du porche de l’église, tandis que des mendiants s’agitent non loin de l’auberge du Carneval. C’est le mouvement même de la vie, et Bruegel dépasse dans sa conception les limites artificielles de la morale humaine.” (Tolnay 1935, 26).
3) “[A]uch Coornhert wendet sich mit Schärfe gegen die Religionsstreitigkeiten, die er als die Ursache des Unglücks — „d’ellendighe miserien“ — bezeichnet, von dem die Niederländer betroffen wurden. […] Gegen das Ende des Mittelalters neigen diese Feste dazu, auszuarten; das Religiöse tritt immer mehr zurück und sie werden vor allem zum Vorwand für Eß‑ und Trinkorgien sowie Sittenlosigkeit.” (Stridbeck 1956, 192).
4) This ‘simplified’ interpretation has however encouraged some very valuable folkloric studies on the painting: Arthur Halberlandt (1933), Jean Avalon (1955), Claude Gaignebet (1972), Konrad Renger (1988) and, especially valuable is the study of Marianne Rumpf (1986).
5) “Sa [le tableau de la Lutte de Carême et de Carneval] première qualité est le pittoresque vivant des mœurs. Le duel burlesque entre Carême et Carnaval, héritage encore de Bosch, n’est qu’un des divertissements de ce jour de liesse.” (Genaille 1935, 29).
6) The ‘realistic’ interpretation is nevertheless maintained by a number of scholars, more recently by Dietz-Rüdiger Moser (1993) and Ursula Härting (1996) who both Emphasises that Bruegel's picture is altogether realistic and in perfect concordance with the (catholic) religious practices and “Armenfürsorge” of the time.
7) This rebus is in another form, as SauLe à la MaiN, very common in Masonic prints. An obvious example is the grotesque ‘tower-chariot’ of T. Schwighart in Speculum sophicum Rhodostauroticum from 1604. We see four persons standing in the corner shelters of the tower, each holding a twig in his hand. On the plate is, by the way, also a scene in which a man is dragged out of a well by a chain running on a pulley and fixed to the tower-chariot. Cf. Alexander Roob, Alchemie und Mystik (Cologne: Taschen, 1993), 353.
8) I am myself responsible for this. According to Grasset d’Orcet, one plate in the Hypnerotomachia (the one with the ring and the dolphin round an anchor) reads: “Rire n’est écouter ne l’aient / Christ Dieu fit naître vrai Gilpin” (Grasset d’Orcet, 1983, 1:289). A painting by Titian (one of M. G. d’Orcet’s favourites by the way), “Madonna with Child and St. Catherine” in the Louvre is usually called “La Vierge au Lapin” because she has a white rabbit on her blue robe. This ought to read: “Christ Dieu fit naître vrai Gilpin”.
9) Cf. Grasset d’Orcet 1983, 2:49.
10) Another chicken-foot, or actually three of them, is represented in the lower left corner of David Vinckelboon’s engraving of a peasant-carnival. Cf. Rumpf 1986, plate 2.
11) […] en grec [Polia] signifierait « ayant les cheveux blancs » ou vieille, drôle de nom pour une jeune première, aussi Polia n’est pas une femme, c’est une poulie, et Poliphile en est une autre. Les deux font la paire, et la paire réunie par une chaîne ou maille, forme une mouffle ou un palan servant à lever les fardeaux à bord d’un navire, les pierres sur les échafaudages, ou plus simplement le seau d’un puits. La plupart des recueils d’estampes gouliardes et des vieux tableaux représentent une fille et un puits, c’est Poliphile; la fille tient un seau à la main, c’est Salomon, et de l’autre elle tient la maille (chaîne) qui s’enroule autour de la poulie. Nous allons trouver l’explication de ce mystère dans la première planche de Poliphile sous une forme différente, […] en effet, tout palan se compose pour le moins, d’un couple, c’est-à-dire d’une poulie fixe et d’une poulie folle, dont la paire compose le palan. […] le chevalier initiateur était la poulie fixe, l’initié était la poulie folle, à eux deux ils formaient le pairpalan. Les maçons allaient par paires de piles, les joueurs de balles par paires de pelotes ou de paulmes. De là les noms de pairplan ou parpaillon, pourpre, pairpaulme et parpaillot, indiquant le culte du couple ou de la fraternité d’armes […]” (Grasset d’Orcet 1983. 1:295–96).
12) According to Grasset d'Orcet, ‘Carna’ or ‘Cardina’ was “la déesse des gonds de porte, et cardina correspond au mot français crapaudine; mais carna a une autre étymologie: c'est la même mot que carène, qui signifie une concavité quelconque, un ventre.” (Grasset d’Orcet 1983, II: 9)
13) “Vous le pouves lire en grosse lettre et enlumineure de leurs rouges muzeaulx et ventres à poulaine, sinon quand ilz se parfument de souphre.” (Rabelais 1948, 136).
14) “Nous venons de voir que l’ « œuvre anglé » se composait de vers de huit syllabes, terminés par une assonance en L. Telle paraît être l’étymologie du mot « blasonner » (bé (bien) L assonner). Cette lettre était le signe de reconnaissance des « pairs peintres anglés » entre eux. L’un demandait : « Lanterne si el ? » (Lanterne-t-il ?) L’autre répondait : « Bouteille ». En vieux français, cela povait se traduire aussi : « Loin terre n’est ciel ? » (La terre est-elle loin du ciel ?) Et l’autre répliquait : « Boute œil. » (Mets-y l’œil.) En jargon actuel: « Vas-y voir. » On sait que c’est la conclusion du livre de Rabelais et qu’elle se retrouve dans toutes les franc-maçonneries occidentales et orientales […] Quoi qu’il en soit, les pairs peintres anglés parisiens affectionnaient la qualification de « pairs lanternés », et c’est celle que prend constamment Rabelais.” (Grasset d’Orcet 1983, 1:71–72).
15) “On doit dabord fai­re une œuvre qui prouve / Que nul autre n’a fait la pareille. / On ne peut la composer qu’en français / Sur toutes choses qui se meuvent en l’heure (actualités). / Dans cette planche qu’il n’y ait par d’autre rime que poule. / On use de cette rime afin que la retrouvant / La maçon puisse lire ce qu’on a mis dans la planche. / Le pourple a pour fin d’abattre Rome. / A cette fin qu’il cherche à gagner des rois aux Goliards. / Qui se dit pourple le certifie; / Que les pairs apprécient le signe qu’il en donne. / Il doit fai­re une planche où l’on sente qu’il est habile. / Si son rébus le mérite, qu’on lui en signe l’acte et le plombe (scelle). / Cet acte doit être une image ornées à jeu de pinceau. / Il écrit au Febvre s’il a sujet de plainte. / Le pourple doit offrir de payer les frais du scel. / Son but est de développer le goût du fantastique.” (Grasset d’Orcet 1983, 1:194–95).

Jan Bäcklund