Huik on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
''The Blue Cloak'', or ''De Blauwe Huik'', refers to an old concept for a popular 16th-century print series featuring Flemish proverbs. The prints were generally captioned according to each depicted proverb, and central to these was a woman pulling a cloak over a man. That proverb is also central to a 1559 painting called ''
File:Frans Hogenberg - Die blau huicke is dit meest ghenaemt - 1558 - RP-P-2010-1.jpg, Hogenberg, 1558
File:Joannes van Deutecum - De Blauwe Huyck, blad 3, RP-P-OB-77.684.jpg, Doetecum, 1577
File:Theodoor Galle - The Blue Cloak - DP824597.jpg, Galle, 1571-1633
Later versions:
The painter
File:David Teniers der Juengere - Die Sprichwoerter.jpg
File:NP-76.jpg, Breughel
File:Frans Hogenberg - Die blau huicke is dit meest ghenaemt - 1558 - RP-P-2010-1 (cropped).jpg, Hogenberg
File:Theodoor Galle - The Blue Cloak - DP824597 (cropped).jpg, Galle
The cloak was called a 'huyck' (huik in modern Dutch), and it was a black garment that was worn by upperclass women when they went outside the home from the 16th century onwards. It is unknown why the color blue of the huik plays a role in the proverb. That the huik was meant to be blue was emphasized not only by the common title, but also by the use of a black huik elsewhere in the painting. This secondary appearance of the huik can also be seen in the Hogenberg and Galle engravings, though it doesn't play a central role.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blue Cloak, The
Veils
Proverbs
History of Flanders
Netherlandish Proverbs
''Netherlandish Proverbs'' ( nl, Nederlandse Spreekwoorden; also called ''Flemish Proverbs'', ''The Blue Cloak'' or ''The Topsy Turvy World'') is a 1559 oil-on-oak-panel painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder that depicts a scene in which humans a ...
'' by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder (, ; ; – 9 September 1569) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genr ...
.
In the print versions, the blue cloak or huik plays the central role:
David Teniers the Younger
David Teniers the Younger or David Teniers II (bapt. 15 December 1610 – 25 April 1690) was a Flemish Baroque painter, printmaker, draughtsman, miniaturist painter, staffage painter, copyist and art curator. He was an extremely versatile arti ...
, who married Brueghel's granddaughter, also made a painting with his own modern interpretation of the same proverbs in 1645, which also surround a central "Blue cloak" scene:
Meaning
The central figure is a woman who is pulling a blue cloak over her husband. She is literally pulling the wool over his eyes. This act is a metaphor for adultery, explicitly the adultery of the woman, and the cloak a deceitful "coverup" that helps her husband to "not see it", which is also indicated by another proverb or expression in the Galle engraving showing a man with his fingers in front of his eyes with the remark "Dese siet door de vingeren" (English: This one acts blind but is 'peeking through his fingers').Cloak color
The cloak was called a 'huyck' (huik in modern Dutch), and it was a black garment that was worn by upperclass women when they went outside the home from the 16th century onwards. It is unknown why the color blue of the huik plays a role in the proverb. That the huik was meant to be blue was emphasized not only by the common title, but also by the use of a black huik elsewhere in the painting. This secondary appearance of the huik can also be seen in the Hogenberg and Galle engravings, though it doesn't play a central role.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blue Cloak, The
Veils
Proverbs
History of Flanders