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I am a great fan of the paintings of  Hieronymus Bosch and his best-known follower, Pieter Bruegel the Elder.  I appreciate the in-your-face-honesty of their paintings, which were produced during a period of extreme religious and political repression that gripped Europe.  The macabre, grotesque reality of the people and superstitions of the age are eloquently illustrated with masterfully satirical potency.  Here is a marvelous animation, constructed from “The Seven Deadly Sins”.  They were “deadly” because the Catholic priests would murder you if you refused to buy into their monstrous superstitions designed to control the population for political and financial gain.  From my perspective — 500 years later — our lives have certainly improved, but they are still essentially macabre and grotesque.

The Seven Deadly Sins (2011) is a video animation by Belgian artist Antoine Roegiers based on The Seven Deadly Sins by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.  Bruegel is the best-known Bosch follower and Karel van Mander called him “Pieter the Droll” in his Schilder-boeck:

“Oock sietmen weynigh stucken van hem, die een aenschouwer wijslijck sonder lacchen can aensien, ja hoe stuer wijnbrouwigh en statigh hy oock is, hy moet ten minsten meese-muylen oft grinnicken.”

“There are few works by his hand which the observer can contemplate solemnly or with a straight face. However stiff, morose or surly he may be, he cannot help chuckling or at any rate smiling.”

– Here reprinted in F. Grossmann’s translation (Bruegel, The Paintings, [London, Phaidon Press, n.d.], pp. 7 ff.)

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Thanks to Jahsonic’s Macroblog