The Tower of Babel

Artist: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Title: The Tower of Babel

Date: 1563

Medium: oil on panel

Provenance: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Source: http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/bruegels-tower-of-babel.html

Describe: A larger-than-life scaled tower with many people working on it, amongst a small city. Colors are greens, blues, yellows, and red tones. The tower creates a triangle shape in the middle of the painting. The tower is going into the clouds with light in the distance.

Analyze: the value of colors varies, the images farther away are darker and the light emphasizes the tower in the middle. The diagonal line as part unfinished tower lead the viewers eye to the tower in general and all the different aspects. Some primary colors are used, like a sense of red, yellow, and blue. Form is used to create a 3-D massive tower, that makes all the buildings look miniature compared to its grandiose size. The balance is symmetrical, the towers weight in both sides, with some people gathered on the left.

Interpret: the viewers eye runs from bottom to top, showing the unfinished tower. That resembles the danger of mans success, it shows the rising and falling of the tower. The people on the left portray irony because they are putting so much work into building the tower, but it is just going to fail because it is too much to take on. The mood is set from the red tone at the top, the mood of failure and futility of human endeavor.

Judge: the painting combined the fault of humanity, and shows the tasks that we take that are too big for us to complete. It explains the expressive intent very well, the unkept promises of humans. It seduces me and entraps me to keep looking at it.