Wednesday 11 March 2020

The zoology of Bruegel’s The Fall of the Rebel Angels


Pieter Bruegel the Elder is best known for scenes of everyday life and he can be regarded as the first well-known exponent of genre painting. The Fall of the Rebel Angels shows a quite different topic: the expulsion of Lucifer from Heaven by St Michael and a group of angels loyal to God. Bruegel shows us St Michael (with his shield bearing the cross of the resurrection), but it is difficult to make out Lucifer in his many-headed form. Heavenly light shines from the top of the picture, through the blue sky, and we then move down to the darkness of the abyss of Hell. Some animals are present in the sky, together with angels, and most are descending into Hell, which is not fiery, as it is described in The Holy Bible and as it is usually shown in paintings. The only hint of fire in Bruegel’s work turns out to be a feathery headdress.


An excellent commentary on the painting has been provided by the Royal Museums of Fine Art in Brussels, where the painting is exhibited [1]. As mentioned in this commentary, several of the animals shown are based on those from collections of curiosities, which were becoming popular as sources of wonder at the unfamiliar.

I would like to make some additional comments on some of the animals shown in the painting.

The puffer fish

Bruegel shows a puffer fish with the body distended. One defence mechanism used by these fish is to rapidly take water into the stomach to “inflate” the body and make spines stand out: the same mechanism is used when the fish gulp air should they be caught out of the water. In this state, puffer fish have been preserved by drying and it is likely that Bruegel saw a preserved specimen displayed in a collection of curiosities. While the eyes look unnatural, he shows the fused teeth that are used by the living fish to bite into their prey [2].

Interestingly, some puffer fish have another defence mechanism in the production of chemicals within the liver that are highly toxic to humans. So much so, that raw fugu – a delicacy in some parts of the world – requires preparation by specially-trained chefs. It tempts us to think that the inflation of the body, and the production of toxins, evolved to prevent predation by humans, but both must have existed long before the evolution of humans.


Two dead fish and bloated frogs

The fish are shown with their mouths open as if gasping, an indication of distress that Bruegel clearly wished to convey. The same intention of providing images that cause us to become frightened comes in the bloated frog, whether bloating was caused by decomposition or, should the frog be female, by being filled with eggs that will now not be laid. A second frog-like creature is shown with the abdomen split open to show what appears to be spawn, but this animal is different to Bruegel’s frog (having what looks like the “parson’s nose” of a chicken at the end of the abdomen). I have no idea what Bruegel was trying to show here.




Mussels + a crustacean

In this image we see two open mussel shells containing the body of each mollusc. The two mussels, each shown inside one of their shell valves, have clearly been cooked as, in life, the mantle (the pink/yellow fold) is closely applied to the shell for almost all of its length. Lying between the two mussels is what appears to be a crustacean, blue in colour like a lobster when alive, and the whole reminds us of a flying creature, with the mussel shells forming “wings”.


The stenogastrine wasp

Although stylised, the stenogastrine wasp is probably included as a threat and also as a bizarre creature that would also have occurred in a collection of curiosities. These wasps, like other social insects, are likely to be female and possessed of a mild sting. However, they are not usually aggressive and their appearance more frightening than reality, especially when shown at such a large size relative to other recognisable animals in the painting.


The falling birds

Two birds are shown falling into the abyss. One appears to be laying an egg, but it is impossible to identify what type of bird it might be: the other resembles a great auk, now extinct. Interestingly, Ole Worm (1588-1654), the Danish natural historian and physician, kept a great auk as a pet and, after its death and preservation, it might have found its way into his splendid cabinet of curiosities [3].



We can spend much time in speculating on what Bruegel intended in his use of images of animals, both real and imaginary. His view of the expulsion of Lucifer is certainly unique and is based on his imagination, with no attempt made to show the realistic scale of the different components. Dead terrestrial and aquatic animals are present in all parts of the painting, together with images that are supernatural and were likely to have been strongly influenced by the earlier works of Hieronymus Bosch (as mentioned in the commentary).

It is an extraordinary painting.





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