The Fight Between Carnival and Lent

This is one single day, caught in paint. It is Shrove Tuesday in 1559, the last hours of feasting before the 40 lean days of Lent begin. Bruegel stages it as a mock joust across a village square. On the left, riding a fat wine barrel, comes Carnival, a heavy man brandishing a spit loaded with roast meat. On the right, thin and pale, Lent answers with a baker's shovel carrying two herrings. Look how the square splits behind them. One side runs to the tavern for drinking and games, the other to the church, where figures kneel in grey. Bruegel packs nearly 200 people into the picture and takes no side, letting the appetite and the abstinence argue it out. Carnival lifts his eyes to the sky and raises a hand, as if already waving goodbye to his own good time.