Big Fish eat Little Fish Oil

Here is another painting in my most popular ‘Bruegel’ series, depicting characters from some of Bruegel’s great works.
Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s works have inspired many including myself. Bruegel initially worked mainly as a prolific designer of prints produced from his drawings and only in the last decade of his lifetime he switched to painting, particularly specialising in peasants’ everyday life.
I am enamoured by his work and often comparison may be made with my other inspiration Hieronymus Bosch. I have taken sections and characters from Bruegel’s works and made them my own.
This piece is my coloured interpretation of one of the most haunting of Bruegel’s drawings’. Big Fish Eat Little Fish is among the first of the artist's many treatments of proverbs in drawings and subsequently engraved by Pieter van der Heyden. The image reveals many small and large fish tumbling out of the mouth of an enormous, beached fish. A small, helmeted figure with an oversized knife slices the big fish's belly, revealing even more marine creatures. The meaning of the drawing by Bruegel relates to the theme of a senseless world in which the powerful instinctively and consistently prey on the weak. The original drawing by Bruegel was dated 1556 yet the meaning of this proverb still prevails today.
Through the relationship between the various elements within the work hints of narrative and representation may emerge.
Perfect for adding a statement piece to living spaces that may create a talking point with visitors.
Executed in good quality oil paints, painted on all sides, and finished with a glaze of gloss varnish to protect against sunlight and dust. It just needs a nail or wall fitting to sit flush against the wall.
You will receive a signed certificate of authenticity.
The painting is 24 x 32 inches, with a depth of 0.6 inches and is on stretched canvas.
All art is professionally packaged to ensure it arrives in perfect condition. My works have been shipped worldwide.
About me:
I am a painter, mostly in oils although I have begun to switch between oils and acrylics.
I love to paint, love colours, shapes’, and textures. I love the idea that a different story can be read into each of my paintings and each viewer may interpret a story different to another.