The Blue Cloak
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5f/Frans_Hogenberg_-_Die_blau_huicke_is_dit_meest_ghenaemt_-_1558_-_RP-P-2010-1_%28cropped%29.jpg/220px-Frans_Hogenberg_-_Die_blau_huicke_is_dit_meest_ghenaemt_-_1558_-_RP-P-2010-1_%28cropped%29.jpg)
The Blue Cloak, or De Blauwe Huik, refers to an old concept for a popular 16th-century print series featuring Flemish proverbs. The prints were generally captioned according to each depicted proverb, and central to these was a woman pulling a cloak over a man. That proverb is also central to a 1559 painting called Netherlandish Proverbs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
In the print versions, the blue cloak or huik plays the central role:
- Hogenberg, 1558
- Doetecum, 1577
- Galle, 1571-1633
Later versions: The painter David Teniers the Younger, who married Brueghel's granddaughter, also made a painting with his own modern interpretation of the same proverbs in 1645, which also surround a central "Blue cloak" scene:
Meaning
The central figure is a woman who is pulling a blue cloak over her husband. She is literally pulling the wool over his eyes. This act is a metaphor for adultery, explicitly the adultery of the woman, and the cloak a deceitful "coverup" that helps her husband to "not see it", which is also indicated by another proverb or expression in the Galle engraving showing a man with his fingers in front of his eyes with the remark "Dese siet door de vingeren" (English: This one acts blind but is 'peeking through his fingers').
- Breughel
- Hogenberg
- Galle
Cloak color
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/NP-39.jpg/220px-NP-39.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Hendrick_Avercamp_-_Winter_Landscape_on_the_River_Ijesel_%28ca.1615%29.jpg/220px-Hendrick_Avercamp_-_Winter_Landscape_on_the_River_Ijesel_%28ca.1615%29.jpg)
The cloak was called a 'huyck' (huik in modern Dutch), and it was a black garment that was worn by upperclass women when they went outside the home from the 16th century onwards. It is unknown why the color blue of the huik plays a role in the proverb. That the huik was meant to be blue was emphasized not only by the common title, but also by the use of a black huik elsewhere in the painting. This secondary appearance of the huik can also be seen in the Hogenberg and Galle engravings, though it doesn't play a central role.