The Peasant Carnival

Jan Steen’s interiors are legendary, but his outdoor scenes are equally chaotic. In this peasants’ carnival, he shows rustics overindulging in drink and other things.
In the right foreground a little group of people sits smoking and drinking. On the left a man is carried away drunk, beyond lies a farmer’s boy sunk in befuddled sleep. A pig, which is generally associated with gluttony and drunkenness, roots in his vomit. In the centre of the painting, musicians play and a man, still dancing, sweeps a woman indoors with him; his intentions are evident.
Jan Steen’s aim in this painting was to illustrate excess and its consequences. It is obvious that the behaviour of these peasants is objectionable. The painter has illustrated this by adding – on the far right – a woman who squats down relieving herself; a more denigrating comment on this common behaviour can hardly be conceived of.