Bird's Trap, 1565 (Private Collection, Brussels)

This is typical Flemish and Dutch scenery taken up and re-elaborated in many paintings in the following Centuries. Much was made by artists, especially in the XIX Century, to paint nature and life in the open, completing the transmigration from portrait and “religion related” painting into “natural events” painting. Bruegel was clearly the forerunner of this new pictorial art.

Winter life in the XVI Century was tough and difficult. Rigid winters succeeded rigid winters and peasant learnt to “let go” with what they had, playing popular games such as balls on ice and taking children for walks even in precarious conditions.

The eye is not immediately led to the beautiful pictorial scenery but to the bird trap on the right. Birds, in the foreground, sit on the branches as in waiting whilst others peck their way under the trap. That Bruegel wanted to attract attention to the trap is also evident by the size of birds in the foreground compared to the size of people in the background.

It is interesting to note that the trap is formed by a door or a window panel. In those days doors and window panels were made of oak to resist the elements. Oak is heavy material. Little was probably left of the bird once it received such weight on its head but, as in most of Bruegel paintings, he’d likely hid a still unsolved proverb into the scene.

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