Art Institute of Chicago
Big Fish Eat Little Fish
Pieter van der Heyden (Flemish, c. 1530–after 1584)
- Date
- 1557
- Medium
- Etching and engraving in black on ivory laid paper, laid down on ivory laid paper
- Culture
- Flanders
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Institution
- Art Institute of Chicago
This engraving hauntingly illustrates the proverb that the big fish always eats the little fish. Starting with the larger-than-life fish at its center, the image teems with grotesque activity, as bodies spill out of other bodies and hybrid creatures walk and fly about. Pieter Bruegel seems to take a dim view of humanity here, one of disgust at its seemingly endless capacity to cannibalize itself. This is epitomized in the hybrid fish-person at left carrying off its prize, another fish, in its gaping mouth. In the foreground, a man directs a child’s gaze toward the scene, telling him to “behold” ( ecce ) the proverbial truth on display.
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- Object type
- AAT300041273
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