more gonzo journalism, writer relaxes and gossips after a few beers

Above: Magpie on the Gallows, Peter Brueghel

More gonzo journalism, writer relaxes and gossips after a few beers

fiction
edward w pritchard

Allegory as a literary device may be presented as an extended metaphor. Brueghel's work is subject to many interpretations; but is commonly viewed as allegory.

Who is the magpie sitting on the gallows? Is there a biblical interpretations, a proverbial warning, to be taken from Brueghel's Magpie on the gallows. Is the magpie meant to symbolize gossiping, the artist as an observer being a gossip or behaving in a merely voyeuristic manner.

The landscape is beautiful. Some of the locals dance, some watch the developing scene maybe in judgment, and one man squatting, in the lower left of the picture which and where  Bruegel usually leaves blank for his signature; one man squatting attends to his daily bathroom constitutional activities.

Is the picture an allegory, an extended metaphor for the political uncertainty existing in Brueghel's homeland at the time of the painting in 1568. Or is the picture just a flight into the artist's imagination. Sans allegory, sans metaphor, a twisted voyage into the artists troubled subconscious, regurgitated on canvas.

Artists, writers and other so called creative types, is there any meaning to their efforts. Or is it just misdirected moralizing presented as a confusing disarray of unsaleable dribble.