Runaway Bride: Pieter Bruegel the Elder's "Dulle Griet" and the Netherlands' Hellish Union with Spain

Authors

• K. Caralee Caudelle, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Advisor(s)

Noa Turel

Committee Member(s)

Cathleen Cummings
Noa Turel
Tanja Jones

School

College of Arts and Sciences

Document Type

Thesis

Department (new version)

Arts & Humanities

Date of Award

9-9-2024

Abstract

Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Dulle Griet (1563) is a painting about which there is ample scholarship, but its prevailing interpretations do not fully consider the interplay between the main character, an aged woman convincingly identified as a virago, and the unusual depictions of housewives behind her. Reassessing the painting within the context of religious and civic imagery of its time, I argue that the main character, hitherto known as “Dulle Griet” or “Mad Meg,” is a conflation of religious and patriotic symbols, loosely personifying Antverpia, the Maid of Antwerp, one of the precursors to imagery developed during the Dutch Revolt and would come to be known as the “Nederlandse Maagd,” a fierce woman warrior who personified a united Netherlands during the Dutch Golden Age. This thesis is the first to propose that Dulle Griet is essentially a political allegory, representing the rejection of the ceremonial, civic marriage, actually performed during the Joyous Entry pageant, between the city of Antwerp, which the main character embodies as a subversive bride parody and the character of the Fool, the Spanish Crown. Bruegel seems thus to encourage the brewing rebellion against the Spanish and call for a turn from the vices of the capitalistic metropolis, unifying the Netherlands through faith by fighting for virtue. Positioning the main character as an embattled yet fierce and defiant Antverpia, layered beneath allusions both comic and biblical, including Babylon and the Virgin Mary as a co-redeemer, Bruegel comments on the turmoil of sixteenth-century Antwerp and its precarious teetering between faithful virtue and worldly vice. Rather than a lighthearted genre painting, generically commenting on morals or social roles, Bruegel uses subversive imagery of seemingly quarrelsome women within the broader framework of religious-eschatological iconography to comment on the contradictory nature of the city, and by extension the Low Countries, and highlight the dire need for a united, religious foundation on the verge of revolt.

ProQuest ID

https://proquest.com/docview/3101955937