CC0 · no rights reserved
Two Beggars Fighting
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Since antiquity, music was considered to inspire two different effects: it could elevate the soul to spiritual thoughts, or arouse passions both violent and sensual. In this genre scene, two transients engage in an epic struggle. The hurdy-gurdy, slung across the body of one of the vagabonds, was considered a "base" instrument whose melodies heated the senses without uplifiting the spirit. In his Syntagma Musicum of 1618, the musical theorist Michael Praetorius dubbed the hurdy-gurdy a "fiddle for peasants and loose women."
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineTwo Beggars Fighting, 1610–20. Jacques Bellange (French, c. 1575–1616). Etching. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Fortieth Anniversary Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland in honor of William Mathewson Milliken, 1960.20
