Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Beggars, 1568

I am disturbed by this painting. The pain bleeds raw emotion through Bruegel's strokes. These men are at the absolute, ultimate bottom. Emotional, physical, and societal turmoil bombards them on all fronts. Degraded even further, the five parade around in a circuitous spectacle. They are ignored by the passerby, who keeps his head down, staring at the object in his hands. Ignored and ridiculed, disfigured and degraded, they represent the lowest a human can sink.

A closer look at the headwear of these figures reveals a layer of Bruegel's token social critique. The leftmost beggar wears a paper crown, and following to the right: a paper shako as worn by the soldiers of the day, a beret to represent the bourgeois, a simple cap typical of a peasant, and a bishop's mitre. Bruegel uses this attire, placed upon such lowly individuals, to comment of the equality of man and the futility of class structure. Beneath any social standing hides a the soul of a human, however hideous that might be.