“Netherlandish Proverbs” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
The painting “Netherlandish Proverbs” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder is almost like looking at “Where’s Waldo”. There is so much going on, it would take a long time to actually examine the entire painting. All of the characters in the painting represent some sort of proverb. For example, “Birds of a feather flock together”, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play”, “swimming against the tide,” “banging one’s head against a brick wall” and so much more. There are 112 proverbs hidden in the painting in total. If you want to put yourself up to the challenge of figuring them all out on your own, beware. There are many Dutch proverbs that are forgotten in modern times, or never really made their way over to the United States. Like “she puts a blue cloak on her husband”, which means that the wife is cheating on him.