I saw Dulle Griet (1562) last October, at the Museum of Art History in Vienna, Austria. Painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the piece was somewhat tucked away in a corner. It pulled me in instantly. I was there at night, during a special event called "Long Night at the Museums" where pretty much every museum in the city (all 130 of them) opened their doors until the early morning for a single small fee.
Midnight was quickly approaching. There was a band playing in the center room. But this painting was special. It depicts a woman known as Mad Meg (Dulle Griet) leading a female army pillaging at the entrance to hell.
Experts have debated the meaning of this piece for years. It seems not a lot was written about the painting when Bruegel first conceived it. Some say Bruegel was mocking the coarseness of peasant women. Some say Mad Meg is the personification of greed or insanity. Some say it is a tableau from the Biblical Apocalypse. In researching this painting, I learned about two old Flemish sayings that may shed light on the subject: "She could plunder in front of hell and return unscathed" and "One woman makes a din, two women a lot of trouble, three an annual market, four a quarrel, five an army, and against six the Devil himself has no weapon."
I don't even particularly like the aesthetics of Dulle Griet, with its gruesome activities and chaotic composition. But I do like Mad Meg's strength. She's larger than the other figures. She's dressed in armor, She's brave. Perhaps crass. Uncharacteristic for the time, she is an interesting and complicated female character in art. Bruegel may have portrayed the figure in an unflattering light, but Mad Meg has agency and drive.
Someone who can face without fear both the domination of men and the demons of hell is someone worthy of attention.