Detail View: Graduate Thesis Collection: ‘Helping’ Others or Saving Yourself? Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Procession to Calvary and the Conversation over Performing ‘Good’ Deeds

‘Helping’ Others or Saving Yourself? Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Procession to Calvary and the Conversation over Performing ‘Good’ Deeds

Krenzer, Ethan

Thesis (M.A.) -- Art History

Savannah College of Art and Design -- Department of Art History

Copyright is retained by the authors or artists of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

"Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s (1525–1569) Procession to Calvary (1564) invites viewers to consider the merits of performing good Catholic deeds during troubled times. Commissioned by Niclaes Jongelinck (1517–1570), the Procession also asks its audience to consider how they would behave if forced to aid someone against their will regardless of whose agenda it serves. Paintings posing such moral quandaries had become more frequent during the sixteenth century because of societal changes concerning religion occurring in northern Europe. Lingering on the fourth scene of the stations of the cross out of the seven found during the period, as described in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Bruegel depicts Simon of Cyrene’s involuntary aid to Jesus in his forced march out of Jerusalem to his arrival at Calvary. Living during the middle of the sixteenth century, the artist worked at a time when the religious identity of the Low Countries was undergoing a transformation due to Luther’s Reformation and the contrasts of cultural identity through their association with the Catholic Hapsburg Empire. Social conventions were changing and even the safety of the region was endangered. Wanting to maintain the Catholic identity of the Low Countries, Hapsburg leaders and their associates caused disruption of the area that was heretofore both their most profitable territory but largely independent of their direct rule. Bruegel created a piece that tapped into the evolution of historical paintings from the previous generation of Netherlandish masters, while also making a work that was unique to this time through its attention to Simon of Cyrene."

*Key terms: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Procession to Calvary, Jesus, Simon of Cyrene, Niclaes Jongelinck, sixteenth century, the Low Countries, Hapsburg Empire, northern Europe

Savannah, Georgia : Savannah College of Art and Design

2019-05

PDF : 127 pages, illustrations (some color)