Pieter Brueghel the Younger (Brussels 1564 - Antwerp 1638): a son worthy of his father
The famous Pieter Bruegel the Elder had a number of children who also became painters. Pieter Brueghel the Younger was his eldest son. When his father died in Brussels in 1569, he was only five years old. And yet his career as an artist was greatly influenced by his fatherıs heritage, to which he contributed by making copies of his paintings. However, these copies are often far more than mere servile imitations. They also sometimes reveal unknown aspects of the work of Bruegel the Elder. The Fight between Carnival and Lent, which forms part of the collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium , provides us with a striking example of this.
 
What will we eat tomorrow? Carnival and Lent or the fight between the famished church-goers and the unrestrained
merry-makers
In Bruegelıs world of 16th century Europe - and for a long time after - surviving was a daily struggle. It was far from easy to reply to the question: what will we eat tomorrow? Good healthy meat was not on the menu every day. On the contrary, it remained an exception, especially for the lessfavoured classes. So it is easy to understand the way the populace yearned for food (and drink) in a way that could be taken to extremes. Books and letters written by visitors from abroad at the time make frequent comments deploring the excesses of feasting and binging in Bruegel ıs day. The Church did everything it could to curb these excesses. The liturgical year was an ordered balance of feast days and periods of great sobriety. The longest fast was during Lent, forty days before Easter. But before Lent came the Carnival that enabled the people to fill their bellies one last time and to drink until they could hold no more - before tightening their belts for the holy period of Lent..
 
The Fight between Carnival and Lent: a difficult choice between the inn and the church
Fasting wasnıt much fun and the privations involved psychological conflict even the most devout soul was prey to the internal struggle between the pious instructions of Lent and the constant temptation of food and drink. In this painting, Brueghel the Younger presents this stand-off as a fight between two worlds: those of Carnival and Lent. In the foreground, two adversaries are laying into each other as they would in a boxing match: to the left, flaccidly sitting on a barrel of beer, the fat beer-bellied Carnival (G) goes to war against the old, scrawny figure of Lent (R). Here, the left and right-hand sides, as they still do in many of our cultures today, represent Good (right) and Evil (left). Think back to the old prejudice against using the left hand, or the idea in which the devil is always perched on the left shoulder and an angel on the right. There is the same duality in the whole of Brueghelıs painting: the left-hand side (I) depicts the blameful world of the Carnival (which some people will probably find the more attractive of the two) with a tavern on the extreme left, a den of iniquity; the right-hand side (II) represents the opposite world of Lent (rather somber and boring in our view, perhaps) with on the extreme right a church, the refuge for pious souls. The natural surroundings are also marked by this duality, with winter on the left (with bare trees) (III) and spring on the right (with leaves already on the branches) (IV).
 
The cycles of Carnival and Lent: a succession of festive days and days of fasting
The painting is made up of many scenes, to the right and the left, appearing as so many ceremonies or popular customs attached to the rites of Carnival and of Lent, which together run from the Epiphany (6th January) to Easter. The attached table identifies the major points:
 
 
 
 
Hidden taboos: the details hidden on the orignal painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, revealed by his sonıs copy
       

The original painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, which was used as a model for the painting by his son kept in Brussels, is on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. What is astonishing is that the version in Brussels features details that are no longer visible in the original. These details all refer to taboos that came after the painting was created and for this reason are hidden in the original. Hence, on the copy, a number of characters (children?) are lying on a bed at the threshold to the church. This may still appear shocking today, when the rights of children and the homeless are a matter of public concern. In front of this scene, on the left, a woman is pushing a wizened old man in a little cart, yet another image that we find discomfiting because it reminds us of old age and decrepitude.

  
   

But the most macabre of the details that were hidden in the original can be seen on the right in the foreground: a swollen corpse is stretched out on the ground (U). It is nevertheless wrong to judge these scenes by the standards applied today: helping the infirm was a mission of mercy; the bedridden invalids lying in front of the church are receiving alms; the dead man appears to be accompanied by his wife and child who may be allowed to rely on the charity of those around them. Given the standards in effect at the time of the painter, these examples of pity are indeed in the right place, on the side of Lent.