Land of Cockaigne 1567

Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted ‘Land of Cockaigne’ with oil on wood sometime in the 16th century. The artwork depicts a mythical land of plenty where food and leisure are freely available, but the figures in the image are strangely inactive. It seems as though the artist is commenting on the contemporary Flemish culture of his time. Bruegel made this in the Netherlands, a place and time defined by the rise of merchant capitalism. He was a critical observer of social dynamics and this painting seems to represent a society of overabundance. It critiques the fantasy of a world without work and ambition, implying that such a life would be stultifying. To understand this work better, scholars have investigated the traditions of folklore that Bruegel was drawing upon, but also the changing social conditions of the time, looking at the effects of this new economic system. The meaning of this painting relies on its social and institutional context.