The Reception of Bruegel's Beekeepers: A Matter of Choice

Abstract

The enigmatic content of Pieter Bruegel's Beekeepers is examined in the context of the politico-religious conflict in the Spanish Netherlands during the late 1560s. The meaning of this drawing is revealed as deliberately ambiguous because it is addressed to antagonistic groups of viewers: the Inquisition and Protestants. Bruegel manipulates the dual reception of his work by using an overt and a covert content. Although the artist must have been a bona fide Catholic, fulfilling obligations required by the Roman Church, he expresses in the Beekeepers a veiled condemnation of activities associated with the Inquisition and an even more negative view toward acceptance of Protestantism.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 8 citations exist upstream.