The Tower of Babel
Christian Symbol of Human Arrogance and Lack of Respect for God
The biblical story of the Tower of Babel is familiar to many as an attempt to explain the existence of diverse human languages.
According to Genesis 11, all humans spoke the same language immediately following the flood of Noah. The Babylonians began building a tower that would reach into heaven for worshiping the sun, moon, and stars. Basically they were ambitiously striving to make a name for themselves and become equal to God. This decision was both a direct refusal to obey God's command to go out and people the earth as well as a choice to worship God's creations instead of the Lord Himself.
Angry at their arrogance, God decided to disrupt the work. He mixed up the languages of the workers so that they did not understand one another's speech. The foreman could not understand the workers; the architects could not understand the foreman. They could not carry on building. They packed up and went back to their houses leaving the tower unfinished.
Slowly people found others in their hometowns who spoke the same as themselves. Groups were formed. People who spoke the same language moved away together and each group moved to a different part of the earth. So God scattered the people from the place of the Tower of Babel into all lands over the face of the earth. The story explains that God intentionally scattered mankind into the multiple distinct races that exist today as punishment for their arrogance and for their foolish plan. The Tower of Babel has come to symbolize human sin, foolishness, arrogance, and lack of respect for God.
This legend has inspired countless works of art in differing interpretations of that cataclysmic event, including a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569). Bruegel, considered the greatest Flemish painter of the 16th century, lived and painted in both Brussels and Antwerp. He did not favor the popular influence of the art of Renaissance Italy and its classical ideas that affected the work of many of his contemporaries. Rather than mythological subjects and idealized scenes, Bruegel's art shows realistically-portrayed figures and scenes observed from nature in believable contemporary settings. His paintings are lively, using storytelling techniques, and full of fine detail. He often took a novel approach to religious subject matter, portraying biblical events in panoramic scenes, often viewed from above.
Bruegel’s rendition of the Tower of Babel (1563) is a faithful picture of contemporary Antwerp then experiencing a gigantic building boom. The discovery of new sea-routes had created Antwerp as the financial center of Western European trade and had brought a huge influx of foreigners. It was becoming one of the most crowded towns in Europe. Certainly the left half of the painting shows the roof-tops and structures of a closely-packed city. Perhaps the painting stands for the confusing multitude of languages spoken in Antwerp: Flemish, Dutch, German, French, and Spanish. Perhaps it’s a symbol of the fears that accompany modernization.
He painted the tower as an immense structure occupying almost the entire picture space. The painting is astonishing for its level of detail. Tiny figures rendered in perfect detail go about their daily business. It is estimated that more than seven thousand people are represented on the 30 inch by 24 inch canvas. King Nimrod reviews the work and an architect kneels before him. Masons are working outside the city. In the tower, Bruegel shows precise elevating devices and elements of construction. In the right half of the painting a crane is being used to lift a huge pre-cut stone slab. A crane of this type is said to have stood in the market-place at Antwerp. In fact his technical drawing is so precise that he was commissioned to paint the Antwerp-Brussels canal. Huts for the workers can be seen at various spots on the levels of the building. This also is in keeping with contemporary practices: each guild had its own hut, built as closely as possible to the building site, for taking meals, storing tools, and receiving instruction from the foreman.
This painting is sometimes viewed as a comment upon social injustices in which Bruegel observes the suffering of his country caused by Spain. In 1567 the Duke of Alba was sent by Philip II, the Spanish king, into the Netherlands provinces to forcibly convert the Protestants to Catholicism. During the years that followed he would have several thousand Netherlanders sentenced to death. The Dutch rebels fought back, ending some 80 years later in Dutch independence and Spanish ruin. Indeed, Bruegel's "Tower of Babel" may show a scathing assessment of Spanish force carried out upon a Flemish landscape. The top floors of the tower are bright red but the rest of the brickwork has already started to weather. The entire scene is subjected to disfigurement and ruin, as the Netherlands were under Spanish rule.
Ultimately perhaps his Tower of Babel reflects the general insecurity of Catholics, Lutherans, Anabaptists, and Calvinists living side by side. Just as the legendary Tower of Babel represents God’s anger at man’s foolishness, so Bruegel’s rendition of the tower is a symbol of Antwerp of the mid-1500s.
Source:
Hagen, Rose-Marie & Rainer. What Great Paintings Say: Old Masters in Detail. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen, 2000.
![The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Wikipedia [public domain]](http://images.suite101.com/1387162_thetowerofbabelpieterbruegel.jpg "The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Wikipedia [public domain]")
The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
|
What do you think about this article?
Comments
More in Visual & Performing Arts
Latest Articles