
This engraving hauntingly illustrates the proverb that the big fish always eats the little fish. Starting with the larger-than-life fish at its center, the image teems with grotesque activity, as bodies spill out of other bodies and hybrid creatures walk and fly about. Pieter Bruegel seems to take a dim view of humanity here, one of disgust at its seemingly endless capacity to cannibalize itself. This is epitomized in the hybrid fish-person at left carrying off its prize, another fish, in its gaping mouth. In the foreground, a man directs a child’s gaze toward the scene, telling him to “behold” (ecce) the proverbial truth on display.

Spring, from The Four Seasons
Pieter van der Heyden (Flemish, c. 1530–after 1584) after Pieter Bruegel, the elder (Flemish, 1525/30–1569) published by Hieronymus Cock (Flemish, c. 1510–1570)

Summer, from The Four Seasons
Pieter van der Heyden (Flemish, c. 1530–after 1584) after Pieter Bruegel, the elder (Flemish, 1525/30–1569) published by Hieronymus Cock (Flemish, c. 1510–1570)

The Stone Operation or The Witch of Mallegem
Pieter van der Heyden (Flemish, c. 1530–after 1584) after Pieter Bruegel, the elder (Flemish, 1525/30-1569) published by Hieronymous Cock (Flemish c. 1510–1570)