The World Turned Upside Down

Seminar examining the comic and satirical traditions in Netherlandish art, including works by Hieronymus, Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Adriaen Brouwer, and Jan Steen. How do visual images connect with writers such as Erasmus and Rabelais, with polemical satires of the Reformation, and with popular literature along the lines Renard the fox. What historical developments were at play in the formation of comic stereotypes and the representation of charged events such as the celebration of carnival?