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UAL Research Online

Utopia Lost: Allegory, Ruins and Pieter Brugel's Towers of Babel

Morra, Joanne (2007) Utopia Lost: Allegory, Ruins and Pieter Brugel's Towers of Babel. Art History, 30 (2). pp. 198-216. ISSN 01416790

Type of Research: Article
Creators: Morra, Joanne
Description:

The art historical literature on Pieter Bruegel’s 'Tower of Babel' paintings offers a microcosm of the more general methodological and interpretative interests in Bruegel studies today. Art History has a long-standing and ubiquitous interest in the ‘allegorical’ nature of Bruegel’s work. The Babel paintings are no exception. In this article, I consider both the paintings and the art historical literature, as well as introducing Walter Benjamin’s writings on allegory into Bruegel studies in order to make three interventions into the field.

Firstly, through a close reading of the paintings, the art historical literature on the paintings (with its emphasis on history, nature, sovereignty utopia and ruins) and a philosophical interpretation of the Tower of Babel narrative, I offer a new interpretation of the paintings to art history. Second, I intervene into the methodological debates on allegory by putting forward a Benjaminian conception of the dialectical aspects of Bruegel’s paintings. Third, I discuss how this knowledge puts pressure on our comprehension of Benjamin’s writings on the dialectical nature of allegory, its relationship to ruins, and their reliance on nature, history, philosophy and the question of sovereignty.

Official Website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8365.2007.00538.x
Publisher/Broadcaster/Company: Wiley
Your affiliations with UAL: Colleges > Central Saint Martins
Date: 1 April 2007
Funders: Leverhulme Trust, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1111/j.1467-8365.2007.00538.x
Date Deposited: 07 Dec 2009 12:41
Last Modified: 07 Jun 2016 16:10
Item ID: 897
URI: https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/897

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