THE LAND OF COCKAIGNE with searchable details
This is a moral landscape with little hint of the Utopian overtones
others have stressed. Nelli sees overblown indulgence and unfettered
pleasure as leading only to the deterioration of the human condition.
NICCOLO NELLI
The Land of Cockaigne
etching 1564
40 x 53 cms.
The depiction of the land of Cockaigne was a popular subject- allowing
the narrator to fantasise on food for free - horses born with saddles
and fish that leap out of the river and offer themselves as food. A
poem in Dutch of 1567 describes (among other facilities) tarts that
cook themselves and fences made of sausages.
Look out for Breughel's celebrated painting of the subject (1567) ,
and listen to Elgar's Cockaigne (In London Town) Concert Overture
Opus No.40. which the composer meant to be 'stout and steady'
rather than a moral reflection on an excess of provender.
A print borrowed to scan from Hollyman and Treacher.
PETER
BRUEGEL, THE LAND OF COCKAIGNE, 1567 ENGRAVING |