The Blind Leading the Blind
Pieter Breugel the Elder
PIETER BRUEGEL THE EDLER, 1568. DISTEMPER ON CANVAS.
Bruegel takes a small parable from the Gospel of Matthew, no more than two lines in most translations, and turns it into a painting that serves as aesthetic masterpiece, political allegory, and medical record. Six blind men follow in a diagonal line, holding onto each other by hand and stick. They walk, accurately, with their heads facing up, relying on other senses to orientate themselves. Each of them has a different affliction that has lost them their sight, ranging from corneal leukoma to a removal of the eyes themselves, and Bruegel paints these conditions with such accuracy that modern doctors can diagnose each figure with ease. The biological accuracy of the figures is but one small element of this painting’s majesty - compositional Bruegel pulls off a masterful trick. Dividing the scene into nine equal parts, where visual and informational conflict exists throughout and angling the entire movement downwards to disorientate us, the result is that when we look at the image, it is very hard to dwell on a single element. We become the blind man being led, our vision blurs and moves the longer we engage with the work until, like the figure leading the pack, we fall into its corners and cannot escape.