Bruegel the Elder’s The Land of Cockaigne, aka Het Luilekkerland, makes you think it’s a picnic. Not. It’s a satirical look at Cockaigne, a mythical place where it’s always spring and never winter, in which life is all play and no work, and food and drink are abundant. Het Luilekkerland means “the lazy luscious […] read more

Hercules Protecting the Balance Between Pleasure and Virtue is Legare’s allusion to Albrecht Dürer’s Hercules at the Crossroads (1498c). But what Dürer implies, Ligare makes emphatic. His essential change is the picnic. He shows no food; instead, Ligare places Pleasure on a blue cloth next to a basket of apples. The scene evokes Pleasure and […] read more

Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Socrates (371BCE) tells that when Hercules was approaching manhood, he was given a choice of a life of pleasure or a life of Virtue. While sitting at a crossroads and considering his future, he is approached by two immortal women, Virtue, in a white robe, and Vice, in a transparent robe revealing […] read more