don't you wish we could go back to a time when art was simple back to the good old days when it was just an artist and some paints remember when everything wasn't so complicated yeah me neither this piece is called the Tower of Babel by Peter bugal the Elder this hyperd detailed painting leaves a little to the imagination but maybe you're still wondering what the crap is going on here don't worry we'll get to the bottom of it The Story Goes something like this once upon a time in the far away land of Babylon people decided to build a tower so tall it would reach to the heavens they wanted to be more like God but God didn't really like this at all and decided to turn their glorious Tower into a crumbly lump so God probably just poked it right wrong instead God what did you say I think something something about a chicken tender sorry I'm not sure what happened let's try that again instead okay one last try instead God muddled their language so no one could understand each other and this is how languages began and how this structure got the name the Tower of Babel this story is clearly rooted in a Christian perspective but it's also based on flavus josephus's book Antiquity of the Jews that goes on to say that King Nimrod the man to the left of the painting was the Visionary behind the construction of the Tower of Babel Nimrod was the great-grandson of Noah according to the Bible Noah was a righteous man who lived during a time of wickedness and sin so when God Unleashed a great flood on the world as judgment on Humanity Noah was chosen to repopulate the Earth Josephus writes of King Nimrod he persuaded them not to ascribe to God as if if it were through his means they were happy but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness he also gradually changed the government into tyranny seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power he also said he would be revenged on God if he should have a mind to drown the world again for he would build a tower too high for the waters to reach and that he would avenge himself on God for a destroying their forefathers I think it's fair to say that King Nimrod was still a little salty toward God and His Relentless pursuit of godhood seems to be paying off workers Dro to the ground before him Peter bugal the Elder captures this goofy look Of Denial on the faces of his Entourage so perfectly all while King Nimrod remains blissfully unaware so engulfed in his own Pride that he fails to notice his dream disintegrating right in front of him oh yeah the tower first of all it's abs absurdly massive so much so that it dwarfs the town in the background makes this castle look like a tiny Speck and pieres the clouds but just as the Tower of Babble threatens to fulfill its promise of reaching the heavens we get a sense that it never actually will because the base is crumbling because of its Jagged rocks and exposed scaffolding because it's leaning because everyone's frantically doing something but accomplishing very little either way it's all handson deck ships sail in to deliver materials there's this ghost guy in a boat doing ghost things I guess we can even spot temporary houses that have been built into the side of the tower where people cook and hang Linens up to dry workers the size of ants climb and Hammer and hoist and operate humanized hamster wheels and sleep and bugal loved this little guy so much that he inserted him into many of his paintings kind of like the the 16th century version of where's Waldo this painting is dripping with dramatic irony as an outsider we know that this building will fail in fact we can see that it's actively collapsing but everyone here is so caught up in the fog of the present to see the reality staring them right in the face not much is known about Peter bugal the Elder we're not sure exactly where he was born or his family background we're not even sure of his precise date of birth but we do you know that he was a humanist we can see this in the painstaking detail he put into every person in this piece no matter how small this painting stands approximately 4 ft tall by 5 ft long yet somehow every inch tells a separate story like hundreds of little paintings in one it gives me the feeling of Saunder or the realization that everyone has a story and is living a life as complex and Vivid as your own peter bugal the Elder made three separate versions of this subject this one also known as the great Tower of Babel the little Tower of Babel and the third version that has been since lost in time does this building look familiar to you maybe reminiscent of the Coliseum in Rome this was likely an intentional choice on the artist part Rome was known as The Eternal City a place Caesar intended to last forever and at the time Christians saw its Decay as a symbol of the futility and impermanence of Earthly Endeavors it was in this way that the artist was drawing a parallel between Rome and Babylon but something else is off about this painting because this place doesn't really look that much like Babylon in fact it resembles a European setting much more than a middle eastern one there are a couple reasons I think this might be the first possibility is that Peter bugal the Elder had no idea what the heck Babylon looked like the second is he was trying to make a comparison between Babylon and antp the city he lived in when he created this piece let me explain in 1563 ANP was a bustling Port City that traded in luxury goods it was known as the capital of capitalism a place rich in cultural and religious diversity it was also a hub for foreign trade which caused both a population and a building boom around the time this painting was created the Duke of Alba reported to King Philip II of Spain that antp was a Babylon confusion and receptacle of all sex indifferently a state of affairs he strongly disapproved of given Philip II who ruled over Anor at the time advocated a strict adherence to Catholicism in fact it's believed that the depiction of King Nimrod dressed in Renaissance fashion could be inspired by King Philip I second both Kings ruled with an Iron Fist and I wonder if bugal viewed King Philip's efforts to enforce Spanish Catholic rule in antp as unnatural as king nimrod's determination to build colossal Tower both Kings had big plans that were destined to fail while nimrod's Tower was disrupted by the introduction of languages Philip never learned to speak the languages of those in antp in the first place which only exacerbated religious tensions if we look at the little Tower of Babel we can see that the structure although imperfect is much more complete than the other version and there's one crucial difference the king and his posi are nowhere to be found perhaps Peter bugal the Elder is trying to convey that success follows when the community's needs and wants are prioritized over the desires of the most powerful so reach for the stars but maybe don't build a colossal Tower to reach them consider this painting exposed thank you to my amazing channel members I'll see you in the next one