Construction Of The Tower Of Babel, Flemish Painter 17th-18th Century

Flemish painter 17th-18th century
Construction of the Tower of Babel

Oil on canvas

51 x 64 cm
Framed 66 x 78 cm

If there is a subject in art that has been taken up several times throughout the ages in an ever new and original vision closely linked to the individual sensibility of the author, the subject of the Tower of Babel perfectly embodies these requirements. And our work, by a Flemish painter active between the 17th and 18th centuries, is a rare and valuable testimony of this.

An ancient subject, an evergreen myth and metaphor, which in art has always had the power to teleport the observer into another world, making him curious and fascinated.

One cannot fail to mention the celebrated Tower of Babel by Bruegel the Elder, which is the perfect example of this feeling, and in general the many other works that the best Flemish painters have created to honour this theme, displaying incredible painterly and inventive qualities.

Although a figment of the author's imagination, let us remember that the Tower of Babel is one of the most fascinating and enigmatic stories in the Bible, quoted in the book of Genesis (11:1-9[1]), where it is said that men decided to build a city and a tower whose top would reach to Heaven.

But God, seeing the excessive ambition and unity of men, who ruled the earth in peaceful union and with one language, decided to wreak havoc and prevented the completion of the structure, confusing their languages so that they could no longer understand each other and leading to the dispersion of the peoples.

In the bottom left-hand corner we see the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, a symbol of pride, followed by a group of courtiers and soldiers and portrayed as the architect shows him his work, astonished by the workers.

In the background, the protagonist of the canvas, stands the imposing construction along the banks of the Euphrates River, consisting of a complex structure incorporating several eclectically overlapping architectural styles, drawn from the Italian Renaissance tradition with the addition of elements of a decidedly more medieval and northern European tradition.

Observing the details, we can lose ourselves in admiring the fervent activity of the builders, with the small figures scrambling up and down the ramps to carry out the majestic work as quickly as possible.