The Tower of Babel

A strangely skewed 18th-century rendering of the ‘The Tower of Babel’. The mythical mega-structure from antiquity, designed to be as tall as to touch heaven itself.

Note the top of image; the falling bricks and hod carrier. According to the accompanying article a day of mourning was declared whenever a brick fell from the top of the tower. This of course due to the immense effort and time span in ferrying it up there. Alas no mention of remorse for the hapless builder!

Not sure of the Artist, exact date or origin of the painting, please let me know if you do…

Image is scanned from the 70’s publication Man, Myth & Magic more about that here at Wikipedia.

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7 thoughts on “The Tower of Babel”

  3. wicked picture, I don’t know who the artist however you may be interested in this:
    http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/bruegels-presence/
    really interesting post about two other paintings of the Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel with a bit of a digression on some of his other medieval paintings.
    In fact now that I think about it you might really dig some of his posts on his blog.

    his work concept work on the failed Vincent Ward Aliens 3 movie:
    http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/alien-past/

    or his SciFi film treatment exploring some of his architectural theory:
    http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/underground-berlin-the-film-treatment/

  4. Cheers for those Links,

    brilliant stuff!! TBH Lebbeus Woods isn’t someone I know a great deal about – so I’ll definitely do some research there! Great blog, and nicely designed too…

    thanks again!

  5. yeah I can understand, outside the halloed halls of architecture schools he is not that well known. I like lots of others going through the schools thought he was awesome.

  6. The artist is known as the Bedford Master (or the Master of the Duke of Bedford), he was an illuminator who worked for the Duke of Bedford and produced a manuscript known as the Bedford Hours which is where this illustration comes from. The manuscript is owned by the British Library, although I don’t think it is on public display.

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