The Parable of the Blind, also known as The Blind Leading the Blind, is another realistic painting by the Netherlandish artist Pieter Bruegel depicting a popular Biblical motive. The painting shows a procession of six blind and disabled men. Today, it has been established that each of the men has a different eye affliction affecting his vision, including corneal leukoma, atrophy of the globe, and removed eyes. With a masterful application of foreshortening, Briegel demonstrates the first man, the leader. He is seen falling off the bridge, essentially sentencing the others to the same fate. The choice of artistic medium for the current work is quite curious. The Parable of the Blind is one of the very few surviving distemper paintings created by Bruegel. The type of paint used by the artist is called tüchlein: it is made of tempera mixed with water-soluble glue, which creates an effect of illumination.
The work is based on the Biblical parable appearing in similar stories in the gospels Matthew, Luke, and Thomas. For example, Matthew says that “if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit,” which is exactly what is happening in the painting. The Parable of the Blind conveys many characteristics of the Renaissance movement in art. Previously, the blind were considered to be gifted individuals touched by divine grace: out of respect for them, they were drawn with their eyes closed (Honig, 2019). Bruegel defies this canon by showing the men in the procession as unsightly and decrepit with explicit signs of eye disease. It is safe to say that Bruegel actively pursues realism at the expense of religious faith, which was a logical consequence of the decline of the Catholic church in Europe.
References
Honig, E. A. (2019). Pieter Bruegel and the Idea of Human Nature. Reaktion Books.