Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca 1525-1569), Christ carrying the Cross, also know as The Procession to Calvary, 1564, oil on oak panel, 124 x 170 cm.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The painting represents the religious event of Christ carrying the cross on his way to Calvary. Like in his paintings, The Census at Bethlehem and the Massacre of the Innocents, Bruegel incorporates the religious event into his own time, here using it as a pretext to focus his message on human folly, duplicity and wickedness.

Christ fallen under the weight of the cross, however at the centre of the painting, doesn’t deserve much attention, since being almost absorbed into the painting’s main subject, a myriad of little scenes with tiny vibrant figures, gathering for a special happening. All of them are dressed in Flemish contemporary garments, which means clearly Bruegel’s intention to portray scenes of Flemish present day customs and smoothly critical behaviour though.

A few youngsters in the foreground and others in the faraway background are frolicking and disinterested in the forthcoming macabre event. But in contrast, our attention is drawn to the whirl of adult behaviour of the crowds in procession, discussing, fighting, even pickpocketing and by all means eager to attend the spectacle of a triple crucifixion. Public executions were quite normal at the time of Bruegel’s troubled Flanders, often under the guidance of mercenaries in the service of Philip II of Spain. Their presence in the middle distance of this painting is striking at first glance, dressed as they are in their bright-red tunics.

In front of Christ fallen under the cross, a horse trundles a cart transporting the two thieves to be crucified as well, both of them making their final confessions to hooded priests beside them.

In the foreground distinctly from the general scene, the Virgin Mary, Saint John and two holy women, dressed in the clothes worn at the time of the real crucifixion, grieve over the destiny of Christ together with a few Flemish-dressed mourners to the right.

Meanwhile crowds are walking while others go horse-riding towards Golgotha. To the upper right of the painting, a dense circle of onlookers are already waiting, impatient for the spectacle to come. In their middle two crosses are erected with in between a hole being dug to receive the third cross, from which Christ will hang.

In the landscape Bruegel painted an unfamiliar impressive rocky formation on top of which perches a windmill. The significance of Bruegel’s intention is still to be understood. Or is the foolish appearance of a windmill resting on a rock just a reference to the folly of mankind?

For several details of the painting, see next pictures