The Blind Leading the Blind

Bruegel's Blind Leading the Blind from 1568 illustrates Christ's parable from Matthew: 'If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.' Six blind men are shown in a diagonal procession, the leader already tumbling into a ditch and pulling the chain of followers toward the same fall. The painting's horizontal frieze of figures, each face a distinct individual portrait of disability, blindness, and varying degrees of awareness of impending disaster, has been interpreted as a meditation on human society following leaders who cannot see truth. Painted in the year of Bruegel's death, it reflects the profound pessimism about human folly that runs through his late work.

The composition creates a powerful diagonal of falling figures moving from left to right, each in a progressively more stable position. Bruegel renders the blind men's faces with clinical accuracy in depicting different forms of eye disease, demonstrating his remarkable powers of observation.