RT Journal
A1 Harris JC
T1 PIeter bruegel's dulle griet
JF Archives of General Psychiatry
JO Archives of General Psychiatry
YR 2011
FD June 6
VO 68
IS 6
SP 543
OP 544
DO 10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.59
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.59
AB 
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c 1525-1569), famous during his lifetime for his illustrations of proverbs and for his humor, did not reveal what inspired him to paint the satirical allegorical painting known as Dulle Griet. In 1604, more than 40 years after the painting's completion, Karel van Mander, an early historian of Flemish painting, in his Schilder-Boeck wrote of Bruegel: “He also painted a Dulle Griet, who is stealing before [in front of] hell [Figure 1]. I believe this picture . . . is to be found at the Imperial court”2(p3) of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, in Prague. Moreover, van Mander noted that the viewer of Bruegel's paintings cannot “contemplate [them] seriously without laughing, and however straight-faced and stately he may be, he has at least to twitch his mouth or smile.”3(p1) The equivalent name for Griet is Margaret or Meg in English. The name often was used in a pejorative sense for an ill-tempered and emotionally explosive woman. At Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, the cannon was named Roaring Meg and another great cannon at the Friday Market in Ghent, Belgium, in 1578, was named Dulle Griet.3(p127) Thus, Dulle Griet was a stock character in the folklore of the day.