A town square in a Flemish city. On the left, a fat man on a beer barrel, with a spit of meat, rides into battle for Carnival. On the right, a thin old woman on a cart, with two fish on a baker’s peel, stands for Lent.

Around them, the whole town lives out both sides: feasting and dancing on one side, prayer and charity on the other. Bruegel painted it in 1559.