In the autumn of 1980, I learned to overcome one of mankind’s greatest fears. Conquering it was a matter of moving silently across cornfield stubble in the dead of night, lying in wait at the edge of a copse for several hours in pitch dark, and storming an old castle long after dusk. When I undertook the Commando training course of the Royal Marines, I learned that night was my friend, not my fear.

It’s one of the big disadvantages of being human, I guess. Our cat, for all her indecisiveness and paroxysmally odd behaviour, can leap from our bed when the light is off, and see almost as well as she does in daylight. Yet when we get out of bed to go for a pee at 0400, we can’t see a thing without turning a light on.

So for many of us, darkness is the world of the unseen and unknown, a world of eerie sounds and doings, when the werewolves roam, and harmless bats turn the bold into blancmange. There might sometimes – as in Stuart Pearson Wright’s painting below – be a touch of frisson, but when it comes down to it, we are deeply scared of the unknown and alien.

Though many of us now enjoy a world without borders, discourse without prejudice, and unprecedented global cultural richness, we are the few. Most people still stick around their home town, talk with others of their own colour, caste, and creed, and long for their own insular comforts. For them, most things foreign are like the night. All they want to do is turn on the light, and reassure themselves that their world order is as it always has been.

We are now seeing those primaeval and deep-seated fears brought to the surface. In the UK during our recent referendum campaign, in the US Presidential Primaries, throughout much of Europe, there are public figures who are turning over people’s inner fears, and preying on them. Expressions of xenophobia abound. Some have been so unashamed as to be outrageous: one of the posters used in the UK’s referendum campaign was a modernised version of one used by the Nazi party during the 1930s, and by any standards violated national and moral law.

Xenophobic propaganda is equally happy to assert blatant lies, and to propound the logically impossible. Senator Ted Cruz’s “We must keep the internet free”, seen here, claims that only by keeping it under US control can it be protected from the harm that those evil foreigners will do to it, for example.

Rising fear opens up every nasty little crack that we have been trying to heal over. Friends and colleagues are dragged into arguments which they would previously never have gone near. We’re forced to take sides, as if in some childhood game of cowboys and Indians. Only now it’s for real: the blood is not theatrical but someone’s life, and the guns kill people.

Just like our fear of the dark, the only answer is to conquer that fear, and to help others conquer theirs. We need to expose propaganda, and those who succeed on its back, for what it is. When accused of being part of ‘project fear’, we must show that it is actually they who are exploiting fear and trashing the rational. When they cry for freedom, we must show how they are actually oppressing. For it is the propagandist’s style to accuse their opponents of their own greatest faults: it seizes the sound-byte, and stifles thought about meaning or truth.

We must show how reason, knowledge, wisdom, and the ideals of mankind can turn these fears around, and bring us together, not cleave us apart.

Bosch’s greatest masterpiece, and one of the greatest paintings in the world, presents an intriguing and intricate vision. Unique in its content, it remains a conversation piece half a millenium after it was painted.

The Artist: Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516)
The Painting: The Garden of Earthly Delights (catalogue raisonné no. 21)
Dates: c 1495-1505
Media: oil on oak panel
Dimensions: central panel 190 × 175 cm, each wing 187.5 × 76.5 cm
Location: Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
Credits: Wikimedia Commons.

Most triptychs were intended for use in places of worship, particularly as altarpieces. This one appears to have been commissioned primarily as a conversation piece for the well-educated nobility, specifically Count Henry III of Nassau-Breda (1483-1538), in what is now Belgium. It is also one of Bosch’s best documented paintings, first being recorded only a year after his death, and described by a succession of viewers ever since.

Ilsink et al. consider that Bosch’s main inspiration and source for the material in this painting was Hartmann Schedel’s extensively illustrated Weltchronik (history of the world) published in Nuremberg in 1493. This uses the same Biblical quotation as appears on the exterior of this painting.

Despite those descriptions, extensive research, and many published studies since, it remains one of the most enigmatic paintings, with many different interpretations. Being so detailed, and with details which are so unusual, it is all too easy to get lost among its hundreds of cavorting figures and weird portmanteau objects. This account therefore starts at the top level, and this article does not delve into its rich details; those are covered in the second part.

The painting

The exterior presents an understated grisaille showing the creation. The interior has three extraordinary panels showing fantastic landscapes which are quite densely covered with figures, real and fictional creatures, and bizarre structures. At first sight these may appear overwhelming, but on more careful examination each panel has a theme and its own pictorial structure. The themes (from the left) are based on creation (the Garden of Eden), pleasure (a pleasure garden), and destruction (the ‘garden’ of hell itself).

The exterior features a grisaille painting of a portion of the earth within an orb. The surface of that earth is shown at the end of the third day of creation according to the account in Genesis: the land has been separated from water, and plants have started to develop and grow. At the top left is a miniature showing God the Father, apparently based on an engraving in Weltchronik (1493).

The inscription above the painting reads: (left) Ipse dixit et facta sunt (right) Ipse mandavit et creata sunt. This is verse 9 of Psalm 33 from the Latin Vulgate, and is translated into English as ‘For He spake and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.’

Opening this restrained and modest cover reveals a heady rush of bright colours, greens, reds, and blues, and a seething mass of detail.

The left panel shows an innovative view of the Garden of Eden, which is divided into tiers as it recedes into the background. The foreground is dominated by a scene from the account of the creation of man in Genesis, in which God has just created Eve, and introduces Eve to Adam. Adam is seated on the ground on the right hand of God. God holds Eve, on his left, by the right wrist. She appears to be kneeling on the grass on which they are stood. God wears red robes, Adam and Eve are of course naked.

Closer to the viewer is a small lake which is teeming with extraordinary fish, other aquatic creatures, birds, and land animals. In all about thirty are shown, few of which resemble earthly species. Behind this foreground is dense woodland, with one tree of strange form prominent at the left, similar to a type of palm.

The wood drops down to another lake, in the middle of which is a rocky outcrop containing gems, on which a strange red fountain tower stands. The base of that tower is a sphere, which has a porthole cut out, and an owl peering out from that hole. At the right is a small rock cliff, with an exotic tree growing at the top. This lake has various waterfowl on it, and at the upper left several mammals are drinking; these include a unicorn.

Further into the background the land is open grass with scattered trees, and a menagerie of animals including an elephant and a giraffe. At the far (top) left is a complex rock structure from which, and into which, a dense and long flock of swift-like birds are flying. In the far distance to the right is a low but rugged range of rock spires, which are pale blue. The sky is clear, blue, and has many birds in flight.

The centre panel shows a rolling deer park with lakes, which is overrun by a dense mass of naked men and women, and bizarre objects.

The foreground contains a dense group of people who are frolicking on grass with large fruit objects, including strawberries, blackcurrants, blackberries, apples, cherries, and others. Behind that on the left is a small lake, again densely packed with people and extremely large birds, including a kingfisher.

The middle distance is dominated by a central circular pond, in which there are more groups of people. Around them is a procession of people riding horses, camels, and other mammals, in an anticlockwise direction around the central pond. To the left and right are more groups of people interacting, apparently in playful ways, with bizarre objects, such as the tail of a massive lobster.

Further into the distance is a larger lake, fed by two rivers leading off into the central distance, and one at each side of the panel. Five fantastic tower structures are by or on the river. The central deep blue tower is based on a sphere, in and on which people are active. The other four towers alternate red and blue in colour, and feature various strange superstructures and ornaments. The two in the far distance, towards the top of the panel, are built over the river.

Far beyond is rolling, wooded countryside. The skies above are blue, cloudless, and contain several bizarre flying contraptions.

The right panel is a complete contrast to the other two, in showing a nighttime scene full of suffering, violence, and destruction. It is segregated into three tiers by prevailing colour.

The foreground, based on mid-browns, shows two substantial groups of naked men and women apparently in torment or violence. The nearer group has playing cards, dice, a backgammon set, and the trappings of gaming and gambling. Behind them is a separate group apparently undergoing torment with very large musical instruments including a lute, harp, and hurdy gurdy. These scenes, on the left, are being overseen by a large bird, sat on an elevated commode.

The middle distance changes to dark grey and black. There is a frozen river, and rising up from that is a weird shell similar to the upper torso of a man’s body, and head, with its arms formed from hollow tree trunks resting in small boats. Various people there are being tormented by bizarre portmanteau creatures.

The far distance, based on black with red fire and pale yellow shafts of light, is far darker and objects are only made out in silhouette. It shows strife, fire and destruction in the massive buildings of a city.

Composition

Each of the three panels shows a landscape receding into the background. The prominent features within each panel are composed with informal symmetry within that panel, and across the triptych as a whole.

In the left panel, the dominating passages are the foreground figures, centred on God who is in the midline, the red tower in the lake, which is in the midline, and in the distance four pinnacles spread across the skyline.

In the centre panel, the round pond in the middle distance is in the midline, and just above the centre of the panel. The five distant towers are arranged symmetrically about the midline, with the central dark blue tower in the midline.

The dominant feature of the right panel is the ‘man-tree’ structure, which is in the midline just above the centre of the panel.

There are no comparable paintings from the same era, or indeed any period prior to the twentieth century, against which it can reasonably be compared.

History

There has never been any serious doubt that this is an authentic work by Bosch’s hand, and its provenance is traced back to 1517, when it was at the Nassau Palace in Brussels. Later that century it moved to Spain, and was presented to the Escorial by Philip II in 1593.

Various periods of conservation work have been undertaken, including some retouching and other work to address wear and deterioration in the paint surface. The last major work was undertaken in 1999-2000.

References

Wikipedia.

Falkenburg R (2011) The Land of Unlikeness: Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, WBOOKS. ISBN 978 9 040 07767 8.
Fischer S (2013, 2016) Hieronymus Bosch, The Complete Works, Bibliotheca Universalis, Taschen. ISBN 978 3 8365 3850 3.
Matthijs Ilsink, Jos Koldeweij et al. (2016) pp 356-379 in Hieronymus Bosch, Painter and Draughtsman: Catalogue Raisonné, Yale UP and Mercatorfonds. ISBN 978 0 300 22014 8.
Schwartz G (2016) Jheronimus Bosch, The Road to Heaven and Hell, Overlook Duckworth. ISBNB 978 1 4683 1373 4.

In the second article in this series, I explained how colour is rendered to output devices such as displays and printers, and what rendering intents are. Those determine what OS X sends to the output device, but not necessarily how a coloured image appears. To ensure that an output device such as a display or printer shows faithful colour, it needs to be calibrated.

Formal colour calibration

Full colour calibration of displays normally involves putting a sensor (colorimeter) onto the display. Then an app controls the display to generate a range of different colours, while the sensor measures the colours actually being displayed. Devices to do this, such as X-Rite’s ColorMunki series and DataColor’s Spyder series, tyically cost upwards of £/€/$ 80, and good systems are usually around £/€/$ 150-250.

Calibrating a colour printer is more involved again. An app prepares a set of pages for printing, each of which features chips of known colour. The printed pages are then scanned by a sensor (another type of colorimeter) which measures the actual colour produced. Complete calibration kits which include display and printer calibration are normally expensive, and the best will cost you more than £/€/$ 1000.

As most displays and printers do not have direct controls which allow you to adjust how they output colour, the calibrating app instead produces a colour profile describing the way in which the device renders colour. This enables your apps and OS X to adjust rendering, so that the output is as faithful as possible to the original colour.

Adjustments

Although display calibration is the cheapest and simplest, it is also the most prone to error. This is because most displays are used under a wide range of ambient light conditions. The corrections required for your display at noon on a bright, sunny summer day will be quite different from those for mid-afternoon or later on a dull day just before Christmas, and any artifical lighting changes everything completely.

Although the ambient light spectrum will change significantly, the two most fundamental settings which can be altered are the display brightness, and the white point.

Brightness should be fairly obvious, but white point merits a little more explanation. Although our perceptive colour constancy usually ensures that areas which should appear white are perceived as being white, subtle shifts can occur, making pure whites appear slightly yellow, pink, or blue. The white point in any colour space is the middle of the whitest area, and that which should appear a completely neutral white without the slightest colour cast.

Better displays can now be hooked up with built-in optical sensors so as to measure ambient lighting conditions and adjust the brightness and white point of the display in a dynamic way. When the sun goes behind the clouds, the display automatically dims to compensate. When the sun is setting, and the natural light becomes more yellow, the white point is also adjusted to keep whites on the display still appearing white. When you turn an artifical light on, the sensor adjusts both brightness and white point to keep the display looking perfect.

The 5K display built into Apple’s current iMac 27″ model, and many other Apple displays, will automatically adjust brightness when you enable this in its Displays pane. This does not, though, include adjustment of the white point, something which some better displays offer.

Basic display profiling

To adjust white point and the whole colour calibration, you need to make your own display profile, a feature available in the Color tab of the Displays pane. If you have a display colour calibration system, this is where you would select the profile which you created when calibrating the display. To sample how a listed profile affects your display, just select it in the list.

Click on the Calibrate… button to perform a basic calibration without the benefit of a proper calibration system. It will help you to have shown on your screen, in separate windows, the pure white of a new document (in any app), and full black (from an image). Against those you can compare matte sheets of ‘bright’ white paper or card, and full black.

The first panel in the sequence lets you select the white point for the display, using the notional colour temperature (marked in degrees), or standard D50 or D65 settings, or just leave it set at the native white point for the display. Comparing the white window on your display and your white paper should help you work out the most appropriate setting here. If the display white appears slightly (neutral) grey, you can increase its brightness later, but it is important to eliminate any colour cast here.

If you want other users to be able to use this profile, ensure this is checked. You will then be prompted for your admin password, so that the profile can be stored in the /Library folder, rather than in your Home folder’s Library.

You can then adjust the display’s brightness so that its white and black match the physical samples that you have.

Apple’s latest iPad Pro 9.7″ goes further than that: it not only offers automatic brightness adjustment, but attempts to adjust the white point setting too, with ‘True Tone’ – something which is not yet offered in the larger iPad Pro. You can also perform formal colour calibration of many iOS devices: details are given here.

Comparing standards

The final step in this basic uninstrumented colour calibration is to compare a colour standard against what you see on the display. To do that, you will need a precision-scanned and colour-correct image of an IT8.7/2 colour chart from here, and a matching hard copy version, which can be purchased online for as little as £/€/$ 10, from Wolf Faust and good photographic retailers.

You can then verify that your display and the hard copy colour patches are in reasonably close perceptual agreement. If not, you will need to tweak the brightness, white point, or display profile so that you are happy. This is not as accurate as performing a formal calibration using a colorimeter instrument, but should give you reasonable confidence in making decisions about what you see on the display.

In the next article, I will look at some simple techniques for improving the faithfulness of your colour images.

References

Handprint on colour.

Kuehni RG (2005) Color. An Introduction to Practice and Principles, 2nd edn., Wiley Interscience. ISBN 0 471 66006 X.
Kuehni RG and Schwarz A (2008) Color Ordered. A Survey of Color Order Systems from Antiquity to the Present, Oxford UP. ISBN 978 0 19 518968 1.

IT8.7 colour chart by Hugo Rodriguez, via Wikimedia Commons.

Bosch’s greatest masterpiece, and one of the greatest paintings in the world, presents an intriguing and intricate vision. Unique in its content, it remains a conversation piece half a millenium after it was painted.

The Artist: Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516)
The Painting: The Garden of Earthly Delights (catalogue raisonné no. 21)
Dates: c 1495-1505
Media: oil on oak panel
Dimensions: central panel 190 × 175 cm, each wing 187.5 × 76.5 cm
Location: Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
Credits: Wikimedia Commons.

The first article looked at the structure and higher-level reading of this extraordinarily complex triptych. This article completes my account by looking at some of the details, and trying to put this together in a better understanding of its purpose and ‘meaning’.

Details

The Garden of Eden, in the left panel, is the most conventional part of the painting, and compares with other works showing similar scenes from Genesis, if you overlook Bosch’s idiosyncratic beasts and structures.

God, Adam, and Eve are fairly traditional in their depiction, and Bosch chooses a happy moment before the Fall. At this stage, there is no danger from the serpent, and no warning of what is to come.

On the left, the prominent tree bears bunches of grapes, but others in this wood carry apples, one of which has fallen to the ground. At the right are two rabbits and a crow, two of the few species which are recognisable rather than fanciful; another is the cat carrying prey in its mouth in front of the tree.

The strange species seen by the small lake in the immediate foreground are portmanteaux, in that each is made up of a composite of parts from other species, with references made to peacocks, spoonbills, seals, ducks, unicorns, and others. One duck-fish in the lake is even reading a book, and a bird on the shore has three heads. Several other paintings by Bosch use the same technique to create strange creatures.

The other dominant object is the fountain tower in the middle of the panel, which is the centre in which the Tree of Knowledge (of good and evil) might be expected. This fantastic structure is made up of elements derived from plants, a technique which Bosch used in other and earlier paintings. Like the panels themselves, this tower has informal symmetry about its midline, which is placed along the midline of the whole panel.

The small rocky cliff at the right edge is arranged to look like the profile view of a human face, with its eye closed.

A mixture of real, legendary, and portmanteau creatures decorate this area too. Recognisable species include the ox, deer, elephant, monkey, black bear, giraffe, porcupine, egret, duck, and rabbit, but the more fanciful includes a lizard with three heads. Coiled around the tree at the right is a black snake, perhaps intended to be the serpent which led to the Fall.

The distant spires are the domain of the birds. Swift-like birds swirl out of the rock at the left, the flock weaving its way through the upper parts of its spire, and off into the sky. Others flock on the ground by species. The more distant blue pinnacles are based on plant structure, incorporating forms from other objects too.

Overall these details make this panel a most explicit and detailed vision of Paradise before the Fall of Man, assembled from Bosch’s rich and inventive imagination.

The pleasure garden in the centre panel is all about people, their pleasures and pleasuring. In stark contrast to the left panel, which contains only three human figures, the centre panel contains many hundreds. Although other objects are also involved, one of the themes associated with pleasure is fruit.

With very limited facilities to store or preserve soft fruit in particular, eating fruit and fruit itself was associated with sensual, even carnal, pleasure. Although Bosch’s innumerable figures are naked, almost without exception, strict convention forced him to allude to carnal pleasures indirectly, often here through the eating of fruit.

In the left foreground, men and women are seen playing with fruit, often of greatly exaggerated size, and feeding fruit to one another. One couple is touching one another inside a transparent sphere, placed on top of a fanciful fruit floating on the lake. Another couple, who have progressed further in their lovemaking, are discreetly tucked inside the part-closed shell of a blue mussel. Giant birds watch this from the left, and a huge small tortoiseshell butterly investigates a blue thistle flower.

There are similar scenes in the right foreground, where (just below the camel at the top) there is a threesome taking place under a transparent dome, in which the woman to the right is clearly pregnant.

The procession of animals and riders in the middle distance still uses symbolic fruit quite extensively, but also alludes to riding, hunting, and other mounted sports, which were common pleasures among the nobility of the day. The central circular pond contains figures of women, while those riding animals appear to be exclusively men: this may allude to the hunting of partners and the division of roles in courtship.

Flying in the skies above are several very strange objects, based sometimes on angels (right), sometimes on legendary or imaginary creatures, complete with more fruit and one tree.

The towers in the background form the stage for other activities, and in the single example seen in the porthole in the base of the central dark blue tower, show almost explicit sexual activity. As with other structures, Bosch bases these towers on largely vegetable forms, and gives them informal symmetry about the midline of the panel.

The centre panel thus gives a delicately non-explicit and figurative account of the many physical pleasures which the nobility would have engaged in. It matches what we know of Bosch’s likely patron, Count Henry III of Nassau-Breda, who had a vast bed onto which drunk guests would be placed, so that he could act as voyeur over what they then got up to.

The ‘garden’ of Hell in the right panel is derived from the more restrained panels which Bosch had painted of Saint Anthony, such as that in his Hermit Saints triptych. Here, this is taken to its nightmare conclusion, in which its many figures are mutilated and tormented, in a landscape which progresses back to that which Bosch must have experienced when, at the age of 13, he witnessed his home town almost burned to the ground. It moves from the mass of humanity in the centre panel, to greater dominance of non-human creatures, and alarming objects.

In the foreground, a huge blue bird, wearing a cauldron on its head and swallowing a whole human, presides over the scene. That bird is sat on an elevated commode, defaecating blue bubbles containing the people it has been ingesting. Faces stare up from the foul brown waters of the cesspit underneath.

The two main groups of victims here are clustered around objects associated with gaming and gambling, and those for making music. Placing the former on the road to hell is not surprising, but tormenting figures with a harp and other musical instruments may seem strange today. Various religious sects have viewed music as being sinful and the work of the devil, and some of its associated activities – such as dancing – have attracting even wider moral condemnation.

The instruments shown, at greatly exaggerated size, are (left) a lute, a harp, and a hurdy gurdy, which is a string instrument played by turning the crank shown at its top.

Another notable if not iconic feature in the foreground is the pig dressed partly as a nun, kissing a man, at the right lower corner.

On the near-black frozen surface of the river behind, there are skaters, one of whom has fallen through the ice. Another is tied to his ice craft. Above them is the Tree-Man, a unique structure to Bosch which appears in one of his drawings, presumably a study in preparation for this triptych.

At its top, on a circular disc, is another strange portmanteau object, which looks to be a cross between bagpipes and an alchemical vessel from an alembic. Further back is a pair of severed ears between which is the blade of a knife.

The background appears almost apocalyptic. Large armies are on the move: cavalry cross a bridge, and other battalions of infantry fill the roads and fields. A yacht, its sail lit, heads across the water in front of a city. Tiny figures are silhouetted against the light from fires within the large buildings there, apparently engaged in its capture and destruction. Other bodies fall spreadeagle through the air as they leap from the tops of buildings. The moon, hidden behind cloud, casts rays which light broken clouds and the thick palls of smoke rising from the ruins.

The right panel builds a vivid picture of the torment and destruction of Hell.

There are some repeated objects shown across the triptych, of which I will consider owls. Several of Bosch’s earlier paintings, even those which have little or no fanciful content, have incorporated owls, implying that he used them as a form of graphical signature. This triptych follows the pattern.

There are four obvious and prominent owls shown in the triptych. The first appears in the porthole cut out from the base of the central fountain tower of the left panel.

Another giant owl appears at the left edge of the centre panel, being embraced by one of its figures.

The second owl in the centre panel is perched on top of a couple towards the right edge. It is being tempted by the offer of fruit, but does not appear interested.

The third owl in the centre panel is perched on the ‘horn’ of one of Bosch’s fanciful creatures in the procession of animals and riders.

As I have discussed elsewhere, claims that Bosch’s owls are symbols of ignorance, false knowledge, or evil, lack support in his paintings. That one appears in the Garden of Eden, three in the garden of pleasure, and none in the ‘garden’ of Hell, supports their association with more positive concepts rather than bad ones.

Making sense of it all

A plain grisaille painting starts the sequence off with its depiction of the creation, the perfect cover for an account in three images of the condition of mankind. We then see the first step in our history, when Adam and Eve were still secure in the Garden of Eden, surrounded by the wonders of God’s creation.

Some have suggested that the left panel, with its depiction of the emergence of animals from water, somehow hints at an evolutionary process. Viewed with a modern mind, this might appear attractive and imbue the painting with even greater meaning and magic. Half a millenium ago that would have been inconceivable: Bosch makes clear his literal belief in the Biblical account, throughout this and his other paintings. Without concepts of geological time or processes (which were key to the very idea of evolution), such modern thinking was as alien as quantum physics.

After the Fall of Man and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, men and women flourished and engaged in pleasures which were highly carnal and very earthly, detached from God, and outwith his commandments. These only too easily, through sins of gambling and lascivious activities associated with music, for example, takes humanity on the road to Hell, with its many torments and great suffering.

Ultimately, the final panel may also refer specifically to Armageddon, the end of humanity and its world too.

Bosch takes us through this narrative with some of the richest imagery of any painting. Its little scenes may be beautiful, puzzling, enticing, amusing, alarming, gruesome, but they are always fascinating, and the most elaborate conversation piece that you could want.

References

Wikipedia.

Falkenburg R (2011) The Land of Unlikeness: Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, WBOOKS. ISBN 978 9 040 07767 8.
Fischer S (2013, 2016) Hieronymus Bosch, The Complete Works, Bibliotheca Universalis, Taschen. ISBN 978 3 8365 3850 3.
Matthijs Ilsink, Jos Koldeweij et al. (2016) pp 356-379 in Hieronymus Bosch, Painter and Draughtsman: Catalogue Raisonné, Yale UP and Mercatorfonds. ISBN 978 0 300 22014 8.
Schwartz G (2016) Jheronimus Bosch, The Road to Heaven and Hell, Overlook Duckworth. ISBNB 978 1 4683 1373 4.

In the last article, I explained the importance of some form of colour calibration, and how to do that. So you now understand the process of rendering, know what rendering intents are, and have a display which is reasonably faithful if not calibrated by instrument. How should you handle colour in, say, your photographic images?

Cameras, even quite basic ones built into mobile phones, almost all now capture images with a colour profile. This means that each image consists of the data for the pixels making up that image, and details of the colour space (ICC profile) for that image. This is the best way to work with images: if they lose their colour profile, then OS X and apps do not know how the pixels should be rendered, and you could easily end up with colour problems, such as skin looking too red, as if sunburnt.

Open an image in Affinity Photo, or another image editing app, and it will show you the profile which is attached to that image. You can change the profile if you wish, using the Convert ICC Profile… command in the Document menu. If for any reason the image that you are working with does not have an associated profile, the Attach ICC Profile… command can put that right.

Traditionally most images are captured with Adobe RGB or sRGB profiles. However, these are now generally more restrictive that some cameras are capable of, and OS X can work readily with Wide Gamut, which is considerably broader. One of the features coming this autumn in macOS Sierra is improvement in capability with Wide Gamut image processing, so if you are a keen photographer you should now be looking to working more with such wide profiles.

When you come to export that image as a finished JPEG file, you can opt to embed the profile. This is tucked away in the More options in the Export as JPEG workflow. The default is to embed the profile, and I hope that you can understand why that is what you should normally do.

Even the free and bundled Preview app allows you to assign and alter colour profiles of images, and its info window details the profile of an image. However it does not give you the option of saving an image without a profile.

So when should you save an image without a colour profile?

To know when that is preferable, you have to understand how a computer or other device will handle an image which it receives. All modern computers, phones, tablets, etc., should now look for the embedded colour profile and then render the image according to a colour management system, so as to create a faithful and colour-correct image on the display. So flesh should look like flesh, and not boiled lobster.

When there is no colour profile, the computer takes the image literally, and simply renders it appropriately for the display. This is the more primitive, but it is also the more reliable assumption when posting images on the internet: some browsers on some computer systems ignore embedded profiles, and will thus not render an image properly.

So when I prepare images for articles in this blog, I pass them through GraphicConverter 10, ensuring that their profile is set to sRGB first. Then, the Don’t embed sRGB profile option removes any embedded profile and ensures that the JPEG file is ready for the jungle that is the web. You could equally do that using Affinity Photo’s option to not embed the ICC profile on an image which you have already converted to the sRGB profile.

As I am not going to perform any further processing on images which I have prepared for posting, the profile ceases to serve any useful purpose anyway. Removing it ensures that the basic image is already as corrected for colour as I can make it, and ready for any browser anywhere.

Changing the colour profile of an image can be useful in other cases too. Most colour profiles are based on a D50 or D65 white point. Traditional profiles used in images, like Adobe RGB and sRGB, are based on the D65 point, but modern wider profiles such as Wide Gamut opt for D50. If I am going to work more in Wide Gamut in the future, using a display which already has a larger gamut that the sRGB profile, then I may well need to bring images down to a more practical sRGB – with its shift from D50 to D65 – before using them in documents, for instance. This too could spare red faces.

In the next article in this series, I will consider how you can enforce strict colour control, for example when preparing work for exhibition purposes – whether the image is being exhibited, or you want it to show a painting or other work of art very faithfully.

References

Handprint on colour.

Kuehni RG (2005) Color. An Introduction to Practice and Principles, 2nd edn., Wiley Interscience. ISBN 0 471 66006 X.
Kuehni RG and Schwarz A (2008) Color Ordered. A Survey of Color Order Systems from Antiquity to the Present, Oxford UP. ISBN 978 0 19 518968 1.

If you visit public buildings in Paris, and several of the provincial art galleries around the country, you may stumble across the remarkable paintings of Henri-Jean Guillaume Martin, normally simply known as Henri Martin (1860–1943). A few have made their way overseas, but his wonderful Post-Impressionist paintings remain largely confined to his native country. Let me show you why.

He was born in Toulouse, France, and in 1877 started his training at the École des Beaux-Arts in that city. When he won first prize at the end of the course, he was awarded a bursary to support him in Paris from 1879, working in the studio of one of the last great history painters, Jean-Paul Laurens. From 1881, he painted mainly history paintings of classical subjects, and was most influenced by poetic themes, including Dante’s Divine Comedy. The first painting of his to be exhibited in the Salon was accepted in 1883.

To complete his apprenticeship, in 1885 he travelled to Italy, where he was most influenced by Giotto and Masaccio. On his return to Paris, he experimented with Divisionist (‘pointillist’) technique, and in 1889 was awarded his first gold medal in the Salon. The successful painting used Divisionist methods, and appears to have been the first such painting to achieve recognition in the Salon, although as might be expected its reception was mixed.

Martin’s version of Divisionism was different from Seurat’s, in that he painted less mechanically, using more spontaneous short marks of the brush to construct form from separated parallel strokes. Perhaps as a result of this, Martin’s name is usually omitted from lists of Neo-Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

Martin’s wife modelled for his portrait of The Poet Clémence Isaure (c 1890). Not well known beyond Toulouse, Isaure is a semi-legendary character claimed to have lived during the latter half of the 1400s. She is attributed with founding or restoring the local Academy of the Floral Games, which are thought to be the most ancient literary institution in the west. However those games claim to have been founded in 1323, more than a century earlier than her purported life.

His style here is in transition from his early realism to his mature Divisionism.

He became more overtly Symbolist at that time, too, and in 1892 exhibited with the ‘Rose Cross’ salon, which was led by “Sâr” Joséphin Péladan (1859-1918). His Man Between Vice and Virtue (1892) expresses his Symbolism in distinctly Post-Impressionist style, with his own version of Divisionism. It is also unusual for its very realist depiction of the man’s body.

More typical of his painting style at this time, Christ and the Samaritan Woman (1894) uses fine brushstrokes rather than the dots of ‘pointillisme’ to build colour and form, and in places those strokes have become organised in the way that Vincent van Gogh’s rather coarser strokes did. Martin continued to paint religious and other narrative works well into the twentieth century – another distinction from the mainstream Neo- and Post-Impressionists.

With shorter brushstrokes and more rustic subjects, such as his Shepherd Returning His Sheep (1894), his paintings could be mistaken for Pissarro’s more Divisionist works from the same period, but here Martin also uses longer strokes to form the texture of the wooden pillars.

He also continued to explore Symbolist themes, as with the visionary angel in his Charity (1895).

His bold use of colour paralleled the paintings of Théo van Rysselberghe, as in Martin’s Orpheus in a Wood (1895). However, Martin did not base himself in Provence, but further to the north and west.

In the final years of the 1800s, as a result of his facture, his paintings developed a distinctive texture, as seen in his Goatherd in Front of an Old House in Labastide (c 1890-1900).

In areas he applied small dots, typical of the Divisionists, but in others his brushstrokes merged into larger, smoother passages, as in his Couple in Conversation in Front of the Farm (c 1890-1900).

He continued to explore the momentary effects of light, as in his The Green Valley at Dawn (c 1890-1900).

Serenity, or The Sacred Wood, (1899) is based on a passage from Book 6 of Virgil’s Aeneid, previously a popular source for narrative painting.

With its remarkable bursts of colour in the trees, Poets in the Sacred Wood shows two bards, probably Dante and Virgil, in one of Martin’s favourite imaginary places.

Other paintings of his, such as Summer, could easily have been part of Pissarro’s huge series depicting the countryside around Éragny, perhaps.

La Tonelle in Summer is another good example of his mature Divisionist style.

The next and final article will show his work during the twentieth century.

Reference

Wikipedia (in French).

In the previous article, I showed examples of Henri Martin‘s paintings from the 1800s.

The turn of the century was a particularly productive period for Martin. His The Shepherd and His Three Muses (1900) shows his unique combination of Symbolism, narrative painting, landscape, and Divisionism.

This modified ‘pointillism’ enabled the use of intense colour, as in his The Arbour (1900).

He uses longer brushstrokes in his Rêverie automnale (Autumn Dream) (1900) to model trees and the woman’s dress, merging them into continuous areas without any intervening ground.

Beauty (1900) shows the contrasting facture used to depict hair, flesh, fabric, and flowers.

Use of modern high-chroma pigments enabled the intense colours of In The Garden (c 1900).

He won the Grand Prize at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris.

His startling Profil au voile (Veiled Profile) (1902) has very different textures in its different surfaces.

In the early twentieth century, he received several commissions to paint large works for public buildings, including the Sorbonne in Paris (1908), City Hall in Paris, a room in the Élysée Palace (1908), and the French National Council of State Chamber (1914-22) in the Palais-Royal. The last are particularly impressive, and very difficult to photograph.

He had already fallen in love with the deep countryside near the river Lot at Labastide-du-Vert, north of Toulouse in the southwest of France. Visits there resulted in landscapes such as his View of Labastide-du-Vert (1910). When the First World War broke out in 1914, he moved there from Paris, and there he remained for the next four years.

Although he continued to paint in other genres still, in the period between the wars he painted many views of this area, including The Bridge at Labastide-du-Vert (c 1920).

He also travelled to the French Mediterranean coast near the Spanish border, where he painted Boats at Collioure (c 1920).

Probably the last of his major public commissions, The Memorial (1932) is a triptych with a single continuous scene, painted for the town of Cahors in southwest France.

Study for Les Champs Elysées (1939) shows how he continued to use fine brushstrokes long after Neo-Impressionism had vanished. That same year, he finally retired to Labastide-du-Vert, where he died in 1943.

The paintings of Henri Martin are a well-kept secret. Sometimes criticised for not being particularly innovative or original, I hope these examples have shown otherwise. I cannot understand why they are not much more widely known, and why art history seems to have forgotten Martin.

The largest public collection is in the town of Cahors, with its superb mediaeval bridge, not far from Martin’s favourite Labastide-du-Vert. At the moment, the museum is closed for refurbishment. When it re-opens, I think it will be well worth a visit.

Reference

Wikipedia (in French).

One of two triptychs painted by Bosch showing the Last Judgement, it is rich with his unique creatures, but full of vivid warnings of the horrible fate that awaits those who turn their back on Christ’s sacrificial redemption.

The Artist: Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516)
The Painting: The Last Judgement, reverse Crowning with Thorns (catalogue raisonné no. 16)
Dates: c 1495-1505
Media: oil on oak panel
Dimensions: left wing 99.5 x 28.8 cm, central panel 99.2 × 60.5 cm, right wing 99.5 × 28.6 cm
Location: Groeningemuseum, Bruges, Belgium
Credits: Wikimedia Commons.

Another popular theme for triptychs to be placed in places of worship was the end of the world and its last judgement, in which the good would rise to heaven, and the bad would enter purgatory. Identified and detailed in teachings of Jesus Christ recorded in the Gospels – particularly the account in Matthew chapter 7, verses 13-23 – it had support in more traditional Old Testament eschatology (Daniel, Isaiah), and elaboration in the book of Revelation.

In the Christian tradition, the Last Judgement is strongly linked to Christ’s crucifixion, which was his suffering so that mankind could be saved at the Last Judgement. Although often seen as hellfire, damnation, and destruction, it has strong doctrinal links with redemption through Christ, and Christ as the saviour of man. Bosch made those links in the painting on the exterior, and in the dominating image of Christ at the top of the centre panel.

The painting

A plain grisaille painting showing Christ being crowned with thorns, now badly worn, covers a depiction within, showing Christ presiding over the torments and destruction of the Last Judgement.

The reverse, which forms the exterior of the triptych when folded, is a substantial and detailed grisaille painting showing Christ and the soldiers who crowned him with thorns during the Passion.

Jesus Christ is at the centre of the group of soldiers, his head just on the left side of the split. A soldier wearing unusual headgear camouflaged with branches, which are prominent just above the circular shield on his back, reaches up to Christ with his right arm. The soldier placing the crown on Christ’s head is on the left, with his right hand and forearm covered in armour, similar to that shown in Bosch’s The Crowning with Thorns (London).

Opening the triptych reveals an almost continuous view over its three panels, their dominant colours being reds and browns. Although they are rich in detail, their content is not as intense or compressed as that in The Garden of Earthly Delights, for example. Overseeing the view from the top of the centre panel is Christ, surrounded by angels and those who are with him in heaven. The rest of us are condemned to suffer the fates shown explicitly in the lower sections of the panels.

The three panels show a gradation in the severity of torments, from the left where events are portentous but not yet apocalyptic, to the right, where all hell breaks loose.

The left panel shows a relatively normal landscape of meadows, a lake, and woods, receding into rolling countryside with lakes in the distance. Although the meadows and trees appear quite brown, they have become discoloured from their original greener colours.

In the immediate foreground a naked figure climbs underneath a projection of a huge and strange fruit. To the right, three people kneel at the side of a woman wearing rich red robes and playing a harp. Behind them is a small lake, on which a curious boat is floating. It contains an elaborate circular red marquee, inside which are many more naked people. At its prow, three pale angels play a fanfare on their straight trumpets.

Behind them, in a meadow, is an ornate and tall fountain tower. Towards its top, on a terrace, a clothed man points up into the sky. To the left of the tower is a huge red fruit, within which more people are sitting. Various figures in that meadow ride a unicorn, sit by a peacock, and try to catch a bird using a net on a very long rod.

There are birds in the sky, and six angels flying near a patch of grey cloud, in which there is evidence of an underdrawn circle, which had earlier been intended to be a representation of God the Father.

The centre panel consists of an earthly landscape stretching from disturbing village scenes in the foreground, to fire and destruction in a port in the distance. Above that, Christ occupies a circular light blue area of ‘heaven’, and around him are angels and figures of the faithful.

The foreground shows a variety of bizarre scenes occurring around a small pond. At the bottom left, naked bodies are being put into a large barrel, from which streams of liquid pour out, to be drunk by other naked people, who then vomit or defaecate further streams of liquid. A group of people is pushing a boat made from a huge clog into the pond. There are many weird portmanteau creatures around, severed limbs, and scenes of mutilation and death.

At the left is a huge lantern being used as a shelter by a man, who is naked apart from a bishop’s mitre, and women wearing wimples. On its top there are large musical instruments: a lute, bagpipes, and harp, on which naked people cavort and are being tormented. In the centre, a body rests prone on a huge knife, which is cutting it apart, while a masked figure swings at it with a sword. Others are in a cage being carried by a strange and outsized portmanteau mammal.

In the middle distance are more scenes of carnage. A small army emerges from the right, with odd weapons and more weird creatures. Behind them a huge harpy, consisting of an old woman’s head and the folded wings of a bird, has a figure protruding from its mouth. Other figures are in harness, towing huge millstones which grind people below them. A forge is being used to roast the buttocks of more figures, and a clothed and hooded figure beats a person who is draped over an anvil.

The port in the distance has a sailing boat under way, which resembles the head of a large toothed fish. Along its harbour walls, buildings are on fire, their flames lighting the scene around them.

At the top, Christ is seated on an arc of light inside a light blue disk of sky, a darker blue sphere at his feet. He holds his hands out to show his stigmata, and his chest is bare. To the left of his head is a branch, and to the right a long knife. There are four angels, each blowing a straight trumpet with a pendant attached. Those pendants are pale, with a red cross. Between the angels are two groups of men, totalling about seven on each side.

The right panel is darker and even more forboding, showing a thinner scattering of figures amid a landscape of war and death, its sky filled with flames and smoke from the burning buildings.

The foreground shows a stretch of land in front of a tower, featuring bizarre portmanteau creatures. Two figures are inside a cauldron being towed by an ox, on which the rider is impaled with a long sword. Armoured creatures scurry around the tower, carrying siege ladders to scale a wall at the left. On the flat top of the tower, a figure climbs a ladder up a gibbet.

Beyond the tower and wall, creatures ride and torment naked people. Scattered groups stand amid the ruins and remains. In the background large fortifications are silhouetted by the rising flames of burning buildings.

Composition

Hans Memling’s earlier The Last Judgment (c 1466-73) offers a more graded progression across its panels. At the left, the faithful are being admitted by Saint Peter to the gates of Heaven. The centre panel shows Christ presiding over the division of people into those destined for Heaven, and those doomed to Hell. This process is undertaken by armed angels and black devils. The fires and torments of Hell are then shown in the right panel.

Note that the figure of Christ at the top has a white lily branch at the left of his head, and a red sword at the right, and that his feet rest on a golden sphere. He is also surrounded by apostles, the Virgin Mary, and angels.

Lucas van Leyden’s slightly later The Last Judgment (1526-7) has a similar structure to Memling’s, and common iconography with that earlier painting, and Bosch’s work here, with the addition of a white dove above Christ (the Holy Spirit), and God the Father above that. Christ is shown seated on a similar arc of golden light to that shown by Bosch.

Although Bosch’s original composition may have intended to follow a similar structure, there were extensive changes made during its painting, including the removal of the figure of God the Father from the top of the left panel. Although the left panel may still reflect some aspects of Heaven, or the Garden of Eden perhaps, or earth just before the Last Judgement, Bosch shows something of a composite of all three.

Some suggest that the left panel is intended to be the Garden of Eden, although it has many more figures, and none aligns well with being Adam, Eve, or God. It could perhaps simply be Heaven, although its passages remain disquieting in parts, rather than comfortably idyllic.

The centre panel does not appear to show the process of sorting people into those destined for Heaven, and those doomed to Hell, more the gathering chaos, torment, and death developing prior to the Last Judgement itself. This leads us to the right panel, which does not show a classical form of Hell, but the battles and destruction of the end of the world. It is in fact similar in its composition to the left panel in the Saint Wilgefortis Triptych, and there are similarities in their right panels too.

Bosch’s vision therefore appears quite different from most.

The three panels do seem to show a single more continuous scene, rather than three which are quite separate. However, more careful study of the ‘joins’ between left and centre, and centre and right, panels shows that the scenery is not intended to be properly continuous. This is most marked in the join between left and centre panels, further into the background. Bosch has also not maintained the same perspective projection: figures in the centre panel at any given height are considerably larger than their equivalents in the two wings.

Details

I have already mentioned some of the many strange passages seen in this triptych. Here are some close-ups.

The boat on the left panel has a peculiar mixture of elements: a mediaeval circular marquee, angels with trumpets, and on its top a miniature of a ‘proper’ ship apparently being sailed by a lone occupant. It also has fantasy rigging.

The fountain tower is quite distinctive, and different from the more fanciful versions in The Garden of Earthly Delights. It was apparently copied by other artists in Italy. The massive fruit at the left is strongly reminiscent of The Garden of Earthly Delights, and probably alludes to the same symbolic meaning of fruit, for earthly pleasures.

The musical instruments on top of the lantern booth are very similar to those in the right panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights, which also featured a hurdy gurdy. In that painting, the bagpipes were placed separately, on top of the Tree-Man, in its right panel. Both paintings show a figure being tormented on the harp.

Some of the torments featured in the centre panel, which by convention should have shown the early stages of the Last Judgement, and division of people into those destined for heaven, and those doomed to hell. Instead, we see a series of scenes showing our worst nightmares of the latter, such as the painful punishments in the blacksmith’s at the top.

At the left of the right panel, a man and woman are boiled alive in a cauldron, but the figure on top of the ox has already been impaled by a long sword. The small figure below the cauldron has a woman’s headgear and reads a book, features common through Bosch’s paintings.

The distant scenes of war, conflagration, and destruction are similar to those seen in several other paintings by Bosch, including his Hermit Saints Triptych, Saint Wilgefortis Triptych and The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Making sense of it all

Assuming that the left panel is not intended to show Heaven, a literal reading of this painting might appear bleak indeed: come the Day of Judgement, we are all doomed to go to Hell, and spend eternity in its tortures and torments. But that overlooks the crucial painting on the cover, and the links to redemption.

This triptych therefore most probably represents a harder line, with more hellfire and brimstone, warning worshippers that – if they are not extremely pious – they are doomed. Strong stuff indeed.

History

This painting has been of controversial authorship, despite bearing Bosch’s signature at the foot of the centre panel, and featuring one of his signature owls not far above it. Ilsink et al. make a strong case for it being a true Bosch painting, concluding that “it must be attributed to Hieronymus Bosch himself, as the authentic signature likewise insists.”

It is not known who commissioned this triptych, but by about 1520 it is believed to have made its way to Venice, only returning to northern Europe in 1900. Its exterior has had a hard life, with extensive damage to the grisaille painting there, but the interior has fared rather better. Indeed the grisaille was overlooked completely until it was rediscovered in 1959. It last underwent extensive conservation work in 2014-15.

References

Wikipedia (brief).

Matthijs Ilsink, Jos Koldeweij et al. (2016) pp 278-289 in Hieronymus Bosch, Painter and Draughtsman: Catalogue Raisonné, Yale UP and Mercatorfonds. ISBN 978 0 300 22014 8.

In the last article, I looked at colour profiles attached to images, and when you should avoid them. That puts most of the pieces in place for you to work with images for general purposes, such as posting them online. But there are times when you need complete control over the colour in an image: when preparing a photograph for display, for submission to a jury (e.g. in a painting competition), or for accurate colour printing, such as when making ‘giclée’ prints of a painting or photo.

For these colour-critical situations, you must not only ensure that the whole image looks right, in terms of relative colour, but you need to make its salient colours as faithful as possible to the original (photo, image, painting, or object). Given that your image contains many millions of pixels, you need to choose a few key colours on which to concentrate; in most cases, these will be obvious.

Image editors, like Affinity Photo, contain several tools for analysing colour. Here I will use the Colour Picker tool, which is sometimes a separate ‘dropper’ tool in the toolbar, but in Affinity Photo is dragged out from its icon at the top of the Colour pane in the Studio. Simply click, hold, and drag that out, and it will change into a magnifying glass which you can move over your image.

This shows the RGB colour values of the central pixel underneath, and when you release the mouse button, that central colour will be pasted to the small colour well next to the dropper icon, its values being displayed on the RGB sliders below.

Obtain measurements for the key colours in your image. If you have a colorimeter which is capable of measuring the values from the original object, such as an X-Rite ColorMunki Design, then you can compare those values with readings made from your original. If not, you will have to do the best that you can by eye.

You then need to adjust the colour in the image to bring those few key colours as close as possible to their originals, without harming the overall colour balance. Affinity Photo offers several different methods for doing this:

Selective Colour controls are probably the most useful here.

The HSL controls are also fairly straightforward to operate.

If you are used to working with curves from other apps, you may find them valuable, although I confess that I usually end up resetting them and starting afresh.

If your image is going to be submitted in electronic form, once you are happy that its general colour balance is good, and that its key colours are as faithful as you can get them, save the image with its colour profile (never omit the profile), and you are done.

If you are going to print, for giclée prints, for example, now is the time to perform soft proofing with the right colour profile for your printer and the output support (paper, canvas, etc.). Affinity Photo’s Colour Picker also works very nicely on the soft proofing image, so you can check the key colours there too. You might find that you could get a better result using a different profile, but beware: colour profiles take into account the support on which you are going to print. Generally speaking, you should first try the appropriate colour profile.

Make a proof print, and compare that with the corrected image, and if possible with the original object itself, viewed in appropriate lighting conditions, e.g. with a ‘daylight’ source.

There are other tools which you might find helpful. For instance, Chroma (App Store) performs colour analysis on images, and you can use it to help identify key colours for you. It only handles five colours at a time, but you can change these as you wish to extend the range.

Finally, you must now use an appropriate file format and settings to ensure that your finished colour-corrected image is preserved. Lossy methods of compression, as used in JPEG images, alter the colours and content of images irreversibly. This is explained in more detail here. Save your image for printing or submission using non-lossy options for the preferred format, and when you (or someone else) open it your hard work will have been preserved.

References

Handprint on colour.

Kuehni RG (2005) Color. An Introduction to Practice and Principles, 2nd edn., Wiley Interscience. ISBN 0 471 66006 X.
Kuehni RG and Schwarz A (2008) Color Ordered. A Survey of Color Order Systems from Antiquity to the Present, Oxford UP. ISBN 978 0 19 518968 1.

Jean-Paul Laurens (1838–1921) was one of the last traditional history painters in Europe, alongside the likes of Gérôme and Rochegrosse. Like them, he continued to paint large canvases in strict Salon style until well into the twentieth century, to the continuing acclaim of the ruling classes. His narrative style was, though, quite different.

He started his training in the École Supérieur des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse, then gained a place at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied under Léon Cogniet and Alexandre Bida. A strong republican and opponent of clericism, he had a particular interest in mediaeval French history which came to dominate his choice of subjects for painting.

In the late 1800s he was commissioned to paint series of large historical works for major buildings. In 1882, he painted murals showing Saint Genevieve (c 419/422-502/512 CE), the patron saint of Paris, in the Panthéon of Paris. Between 1891 and 1896 he painted for the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, then from 1892-1902 he made a series of large murals for the Capitole in Toulouse.

He taught in the Académie Julian and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

One of my contentions is that successful narrative paintings should be capable of being read by a reasonably well-educated viewer with the title of the work, any supporting quotation (verse, etc.), and the painting itself. I suggest that you try this with the following eight works by Laurens.

The Death of Tiberius (1864)

The Roman Emperor Tiberius (42 BCE – 37 CE) ruled from 14 CE until his death. Known best for his military achievements, as a ruler he was dark, reclusive, and sombre. Following the death of his son, he left Rome in the hands of two prefects known for being unscrupulous.

The histories of Tacitus claim that the Roman crowd rejoiced when they heard of his death, and again at the suggestion that he had been smothered by Caligula (who succeeded him) and one of his prefects. On his death, the Senate refused to grant him divine honours which were traditionally awarded to dead emperors, and mobs called for his body to be unceremoniously dumped in the River Tiber.

Laurens shows the old man, swathed in his robes, presumably with Caligula or the Prefect Macro at his side. The younger man appears to be pressing on Tiberius’ chest, but not strangling or smothering him. Tiberius’ right hand reaches up towards the younger man, where it locks with his right hand, although it is not clear what either hand is trying to do. The younger man’s left knee is folded, resting against Tiberius’ right abdomen.

The implication seems to be that Caligula/Macro is helping Tiberius on his way, but the body language is confused. Laurens’ timing seems slightly early too, in that it does not give any clear indication of whether Caligula/Macro is about to murder Tiberius. This may, of course, have been deliberate, as a means of suggesting the possibility but not confirming it.

Pope Formosus and Stephen VI (the “Cadaver Synod”) (1870)

Pope Formosus was succeeded by Boniface VI, then by Stephen VI (or VII!). Stephen sought to annul the acts of Formosus, so in 897 had him tried posthumously before an ecclesiastical court in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome. Stephen accused Formosus of perjury and having succeeded to the papacy illegally.

Inevitably Formosus’ corpse was unable to defend the case effectively, and Pope Stephen had it pronounced guilty, then ordered that Formosus’ papacy was declared null and void, and his acts invalid. The latter was strange, as they included ordination of Stephen as a bishop. Eventually the body of Formosus, which had been propped up in his papal vestments in the court, was mutilated and dumped in the River Tiber.

The body of Formosus then apparently washed up on the bank, and promptly started to perform miracles. After a public uprising, Stephen was deposed and imprisoned, then strangled whilst in jail. At the end of the year, his successor Pope Theodore II held another synod which annulled the ‘Cadaver Synod’, and rehabilitated Formosus. Finally the successor Pope Sergius III, who had taken part in the Cadaver Synod, reversed the decision again, and reaffirmed the posthumous conviction of Formosus.

Laurens shows this bizarre trial in progress. The rotting corpse of Formosus has been dressed in his papal finery and propped up in a throne. A thurible placed in the foreground burns incense to control the smell. Pope Stephen (presumably) stands pointing at the body of Formosus as a witness is being examined, in front of the synod of bishops. Although this appears relatively static, it is probably as close to a climax as such court proceedings were likely to come.

Excommunication of Robert the Pious (1875)

Robert II (972-1031), also known as Robert the Pious or Wise, ruled the Franks from 996 until his death. Notoriously religious, he conducted a long campaign against heretics, supporting riots against the Jewish community of Orléans, and burning heretics at the stake. However, he was less successful in marriage. His first (arranged) marriage to Rozala of Italy ended in divorce around 996, following which he married Bertha of Burgundy, his cousin.

Pope Gregory V refused to sanction the marriage. Robert’s refusal to annul the marriage led to his excommunication, which was performed in full mediaeval style, ‘with bell, book, and candle’. That involved the tolling of a bell, closure of the Book of the Gospels, and snuffing out a candle, in a formal ceremony. Long negotiations with the next Pope, Sylvester II, were unsuccessful, and Robert’s marriage to Bertha was eventually annulled.

Laurens shows King Robert II sat on his throne, Bertha huddled next to him, as the procession of clerics leaves the room. The only sign providing any clue to what might have happened is a very large candle resting on the floor in front of the couple, having just been snuffed out. Otherwise the large and regal hall is deserted.

Lübbren terms this ‘inanimate narration’, in that the key narrative object, the candle, is inanimate. Although subtle, it is an effective technique for telling this story, which lacks any real climax or moment of peripeteia.

The Last Moments of Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico (1882)

Maximilian became Emperor of Mexico in 1864, although he was the son of Archduke Franz Karl of Austria and Princess Sophie of Bavaria, and had served in the Austrian Navy. He installed himself as Emperor at the invitation of Napoleon III, who had invaded Mexico in 1861 as part of the War of the French Intervention.

However, he was strongly opposed by forces who remained loyal to Mexico’s deposed president, and when Napoleon withdrew French troops in 1866, Maximilian’s rule collapsed. He was captured the following year, court-martialled, and executed by firing squad with two of his generals on 19 June 1867. Appeals by the leaders of Europe for clemency were ignored, and Maximilian even turned down the offer of escape, which would have required him to remove his beard.

Laurens shows Maximilian comforting the priest who has come to his cell prior to his execution, while another man (presumably a servant) is on his knees and fervently grasping Maximilian’s left hand. The door to the cell is wide open, and on its threshold stands a Mexican officer in his finest dress, complete with a sword, bearing the orders for the execution to take place.

Although a pale shadow of any depiction of the execution itself, Laurens’ reversal of roles – where Maximilian is comforting the priest whose role is to comfort the condemned man – introduces an unusual twist.

Manet’s famous earlier paintings of this contemporary story were more direct and explicit, showing the moment of execution – the obvious climax. Apart from the wry role reversal, it is not clear why Laurens didn’t opt for such a dramatic moment.

The Agitator of Languedoc (1887)

Bernard Délicieux (c 1265-1320) was a Spiritual Franciscan friar in the Carcassone area of France. In 1299, he led a revolt against the city’s inquisitors over two alleged heretics who were sheltering in the Franciscan convent there. The following year he made an appeal against the inquisitors over another claim of heresy, and the inquisitors temporarily fled from Carcassone.

Eventually his campaign against the Inquisition caught up with him. In 1317 he was summoned to Avignon, where he was arrested, interrogated, and tortured for a year. He was taken back to Carcassone for trial in 1319, found guilty of some of the charges, and sentenced to life in solitary confinement. He died in prison the following year.

Laurens chooses another courtroom scene to show this story. Délicieux, the Agitator himself, stands in front of the five judges of the Inquisition, pointing with his right index finger, the arm stretched out, at a witness during his trial. The witness stands in a shaft of light, pouring in through the barred window above, and is reading from some sheets of paper. It is not easy to tell, or to guess, what Délicieux might be saying.

Saint John Chrysostom and Empress Eudoxia (1893)

Saint John Chrysostom (c 349-407 CE) was Archbishop of Constantinople from 397, and one of the early fathers of the Christian Church. An ascetic, his refusal to host lavish social gatherings made him very popular with the people, but unpopular with clergy and the rich. He denounced extravagance in women’s dress, which brought him into conflict with the wife of Emperor Arcadius, Aelia Eudoxia, who considered that his criticism was aimed at herself.

She organised a synod in 403, the ‘Synod of the Oak’, to charge John, and he was deposed and banished as a result. This resulted in riots, and the mob threatened to burn the royal palace. The Emperor called for John to return, and he was reinstated. However, John then denounced as pagan the dedication ceremonies which took place when a silver statue of Eudoxia was erected near his cathedral. John was banished for a second time.

Laurens shows John standing at a high lectern remote from a balcony in a huge hall. He is dressed in white robes with prominent crucifixes, and is gesticulating wildly with his left arm. He looks towards Empress Eudoxia; she is dressed in lavish gold clothing, standing at the front of the balcony, and looking impassively into the distance above him.

Although a dramatic scene which uses the distance between John and Eudoxia, Laurens’ composition results in both the actors appearing small within the enormity of the space in the hall, making it harder to read their body language and lessening its impact.

Toulouse Fortifies its Defences to Resist Simon de Montfort 1218 (1899)

Simon IV of Montfort (c 1175-1218), fifth Earl of Leicester, was a French noble who took part in the Fourth Crusade (1202-4), and held sway in much of the south of France (le Midi). In 1215, he had acquired extensive new territories in Toulouse and Narbonne, and was declared Count of Toulouse.

To secure his rule, he spent two years fighting in the area, laying siege to Beaucaire in 1216. He then partially sacked Toulouse, and returned there in the autumn of 1217 intending to capture the city. After nine months of siege, Simon was killed when his head was smashed by a rock hurled from the city’s defences.

Laurens shows the frantic work, being carried out by men and women alike, to strengthen the walls of the city, including the erection of a shelter on the top of a tower, weapons for hurling rocks at the enemy, and more. However, there is no indication as to the purpose of all those frantic activities, nor to the threat posed by the absent Simon de Montfort.

The Death of Galeswintha (1906)

Galswintha (540-568 CE), or Galeswintha, was the daughter of the Visigoth king of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), and sister of Brunhilda, Queen of Austrasia (Belgium across to Germany). She married King Chilperic I, the Merovingian ruler of Neustria (northern France), in 567.

However, marriage did not suit Chilperic’s mistress, Fredegund, who arranged for Galswintha to be strangled so that she could marry the king. Galswintha’s murder caused her sister Brunhilda to make war against Chilperic, which lasted for some forty years. In turn, Chilperic was murdered in 584, possibly by Fredegund. Galswintha was honoured in a long commemorative poem written by the late Latin poet Venantius Fortunatus, which may have been Laurens’ inspiration.

Laurens shows Galswintha lying, presumably dead, in a heavy-built four-poster bed, its curtains partly drawn back. A young well-dressed woman (presumably Fredegund) views her from the foot of the bed. Fredegund is partly undressed, her right shoulder and much of her back bare, as if she too is just getting ready for bed. Just outside the room, on the other side of a drawn curtain, is a man, who looks in through a gap in that curtain. He is presumably King Chilperic waiting for his mistress to join him, now that he is a widower and free to marry her.

Although a subtle painting which requires detective work to discover its story, this is perhaps one of Laurens’ best narratives.

Conclusions

Laurens’ response to the evident crisis in history painting was as puzzling as some of his paintings. Unlike Jean-Léon Gérôme, he avoided the spectacular, and the gruesome of Georges Rochegrosse.

Of these eight paintings, only one concerns contemporary events, and six are about relatively unknown nooks of European mediaeval history (from 568 to 1319). I suspect that most of those who viewed them at the Salon did not know the stories which they depict. Yet they do not appear to have been intended to capitalise on the revanchism which followed the Franco-Prussian War, bringing recognition to Évariste Luminais.

Laurens’ narrative techniques avoided climaxes, peripeteia, or even headlong confrontation with the story. In Pope Formosus and Stephen VI one of the two actors, being a corpse, is inanimate and incapable of facial expression and body language. In Excommunication of Robert the Pious the snuffed-out candle is the main actor.

He also opted for court-room dramas, where surely the words are the most important part of the narrative, and notoriously difficult to depict in a painting, as in The Agitator of Languedoc.

By the time that he painted what was probably his most successful narrative work, The Death of Galeswintha, his painting style was so last century (even early last century), and his intellectual puzzles had been superceded by the rush towards modernism. History painting was history.

References

Wikipedia (English) (brief).
Wikipedia (French) (detailed, list of works).

Lübbren N (2016) Eloquent objects: Gérôme, Laurens and the art of inanimate narration, chapter 8 in Cooke P & Lübbren (eds) Paint and Narrative in France, from Poussin to Gaugin, Routledge. ISBN 978 1 4724 4010 5.
Sérié P (2016) Theatricality versus anti-theatricality, narrative techniques in French history painting (1850-1900), chapter 10 in Cooke P & Lübbren (eds) Paint and Narrative in France, from Poussin to Gaugin, Routledge. ISBN 978 1 4724 4010 5.

William Merritt Chase, an American master painter and Impressionist, died on 25 October 1916: almost a century ago. To mark this centenary, there is an exhibition which is currently in Washington DC, moving to Boston and then over to Venice in 2017. Accompanying that is a new book which stands between the existing short accounts, and his full catalogue raisonné.

In a couple of months, I will start a short series of articles examining his paintings, to mark this centenary. To get you prepared for that, this article gives details of the exhibition, the three books about him currently readily available, and shows some examples of his wonderful paintings, chosen from those included in the exhibition.

I previously wrote about his Impressionist paintings here.

Exhibition: William Merritt Chase, A Modern Master

The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC 4 June – 11 September 2016
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 9 October 2016 – 16 January 2017
Ca’ Pesaro-Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna, Venice 11 February – 28 May 2017

Books

William Merritt Chase, A Modern Master, by Smithgall E et al. (2016), The Phillips Collection and Yale UP. 20+227 pages. ISBN 978 0 300 20626 5.

This is both the catalogue of the exhibition, and a fine monograph which covers Chase’s life, career, and art. Written by five experts, including Erica Hirshler whose smaller book is listed below, it has to be the most complete and authoritative account since his catalogue raisonné (some volumes of which are still in print).

The book consists of five excellent essays, each well illustrated, the catalogue of works exhibited, a chronology, and selected bibliography. There is also (for once, thank you) a good index to make life easier.

After a short prefatory overview by D Frederick Baker, director of the Catalogue Raisonné Project, Elsa Smithgall’s deeply insightful essay sets Chase’s work in the context of his own development, and other major artists including John Singer Sargent, Manet, and James Tissot. This should be obligatory reading for anyone with an interest in late nineteenth century painting.

Erica Hirshler’s essay starts with a lovely quotation from Chase, that he’d “rather go to Europe than go to heaven”, and ends with Gainsborough’s last words and maxim, “We are all going to heaven and Van Dyck is of the company.” Between those she relates how Chase engaged with the old Masters, and establishes that he became an old Master himself.

Katherine Bourguignon analyses Chase as a teacher, which provides even better insight into his approach to painting, as well as establishing his importance as the teacher of so many major artists – George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Joseph Stella, to name but a few.

John Davis considers Chase’s ‘international style’, mainly in the 1880s, when he pursued a three year campaign at the Paris Salon, and enjoyed success in New York, Boston, Munich, Brussels, and Paris. The final essay, by Giovanna Ginex, describes Chase’s painting in Venice, and the early years of the Venice Biennal.

The catalogue is presented in chronological order, each period of Chase’s career being described over a couple of pages before the paintings for that period. Although relevant works are cited in the text, there are no individual catalogue notes accompanying each painting, nor does there seem any particular need for them. Paintings are shown at good sizes, all on their own page, except for some shown as two-page spreads.

The choice of Chase’s work ensures appropriate coverage of his entire career and subjects. All too easily neglected, there are some fine pastels, and his wide range of genres is properly represented, with genre, still life, and portraits covered in addition to a rich selection of his landscapes. I particularly enjoyed seeing his paintings of his family life.

The chronology is excellent, amounting to a dozen pages with some valuable illustrations. The bibliography is relatively short, but well-chosen and structured helpfully.

I recommend this book wholeheartedly to anyone interested in Chase, in the history of American painting, and indeed all those interested in painting in the nineteenth century. It is beautiful, enjoyable, and an excellent monograph in its own right.

William Merritt Chase, A Life in Art, by Longwell AG (2014), Parrish Art Museum and D Giles. 96 pages. ISBN 978 1 907804 43 4.

This short and lovely book contains two excellent essays on Chase, and a well-illustrated catalogue of the 31 paintings by him in the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY. These concentrate on his time at Shinnecock, but by no means exclusively. Although now replaced by the monograph above, this is still excellent reading and viewing, and essential for anyone intending to visit the museum. I greatly enjoyed it.

William Merritt Chase, by Hirshler EE (2016), Museum of Fine Arts Boston. 84 pages. ISBN 978 0 87846 839 3.

Aimed at a much broader readership, from the interested ten-year-old, perhaps, right up to us old grumps, this is a highly accessible account of Chase’s times, life, influences, and work. Intended as a complement to the larger catalogue/monograph, it is a superb example of how to write and illustrate an art book for the general public. Its text explores meaningful and important themes such as ‘modern women’ and Japonisme with the pick of Chase’s work and other relevant illustrations. It is a wonderful birthday or Christmas present for almost anyone.

Paintings

Here is a selection from those included in the exhibition, and in the book William Merritt Chase, A Modern Master. There are of course many more in both.

Nikon prices in the UK are to increase by an unspecified amount – probably at least 10% – with effect from 1 August 2016. This is inevitable due to the fall in value of the £ relative to the Japanese Yen.

Items which are in stock up to 31 July should remain available at the current price. However beware of ordering anything now which might not be supplied until 1 August or later, as you will probably have to buy it at the new price.

If you’re thinking of buying any Nikon gear this year, you’d probably be best locating a dealer with it in stock as quickly as possible, before stock runs out.

No doubt Canon, Olympus, Fuji, and other photo equipment will do the same, at about the same time.

The larger, and probably later, of two triptychs painted by Bosch showing the Last Judgement, it lacks his unique creatures, but is full of dire warnings of the suffering in store for sinners.

The Artist: Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516)
The Painting: The Last Judgement, reverse Saint James and Saint Hippolytus (or Bavo) (catalogue raisonné no. 17)
Dates: c 1500-1505, probably c 1503
Media: oil on oak panel
Dimensions: left wing 163 x 60 cm, central panel 163 × 127 cm, right wing 163 × 60 cm
Location: Gemäldegalerie, Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna
Credits: Wikimedia Commons.

Bosch’s second Last Judgement triptych is devoted to Saints James the Apostle (son of Zebedee) and Hippolytus (or possibly Bavo).

Saint James, the son of Zebedee, was one of the twelve Apostles, and is often known as James the Great. The patron saint of Spain, his major shrine is the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the terminus of the Way of Saint James (Camino de Santiago) pilgrimage through Spain. His attributes are those of pilgrimage, particularly the distinctive hat, and the scallop shell, which also marks the route to Santiago de Compostela.

Saint Bavo is less well-known, but a popular saint in Belgium and the Netherlands, being a patron of Ghent and Haarlem. Born near Liège as an aristocrat of Brabant, he reformed from his disorderly lifestyle, converted to Christianity, and died at his abbey in Ghent. His attributes are greaves, military and aristocratic attire, the falcon, and the sword. His saint’s day coincides with the day on which taxes were paid in Ghent, so he is often associated with a purse or bag of money.

More recently, the saint on the right has been identified as Hippolytus, a major theologian in the Christian church in the early 200s CE. Associated with horses, he was particularly interested in eschatology (including the Last Judgement), but does not appear to have any generally-recognised attributes. However, Ilsink et al. argue that the few known images of Saint Hippolytus are more consistent with Bosch’s representation here, particularly with respect to his being surrounded by the poor and beggars.

The painting

The exterior cover, showing two plain grisaille images of Saint James (left) and Saint Hippolytus (right), opens to reveal a richly coloured triptych. On the left is a multiplex account of the Fall of Man and expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and on the centre panel and right wing are apocalyptic scenes of torment and destruction, overseen by Christ and the Apostles.

Unfortunately the paint surface of Bosch’s original has deteriorated, and various retouching has been applied. For once, it was copied soon after completion, by Lucas Cranach the Elder in about 1520-24, around twenty years after it was completed. This may give a better idea as to how it originally might have appeared.

The exterior grisaille paintings appear in good condition, although the heraldic shields at the foot were left blank. Ilsink et al. report the shield of Hippolyte de Berthoz under the blank surface of that on the right – strong evidence that the triptych had been commissioned by him, and that the saint depicted on the right is his name saint, Saint Hippolytus.

Saint James is shown bowed under the strain of his long journey. On his shoulders is the pilgrim’s hat, emblazoned with a scallop shell. He walks barefooted through wild, open country. In the distance are straggling trees, and what might be a lion (or wolf) devouring its prey.

Saint Hippolytus (or Bavo) is dressed in the clothes of a noble, and is still wearing gold spurs. A falcon is perched on his left hand, ready to hunt, and his right hand dips into a purse. He is surrounded by the poor, who are begging. An old person behind is propped up on the floor. A child or dwarf in front of him holds up his hands in supplication, and a haggard woman is on her knees, a baby held by her head.

Inside the triptych, the left panel shows the Garden of Eden, with lush rolling countryside and lakes. At the top is God the Father, in a bright area, below which there is a host of angels tumbling from Heaven, from the darkening clouds. Some angels are shown white, and some (those who have been cast out from Heaven) are black, and engage in aerial combat with one another.

The story of Adam and Eve is told in three multiplexed scenes, read from front to back. In the foreground, God the Father (dressed in red robes) has just created Eve, while Adam rests on the grass. Behind that scene, Adam and Eve are at the foot of an apple tree. From its canopy, a naked figure hands them an apple to eat. In the middle distance, a red-robed angel brandishes a sword at Adam and Eve, and chases them from the garden.

To the right, next to the apple tree, is a small cliff. Half way up it is a dark shape which is probably an owl. A few other wild creatures are seen around the countryside, which is otherwise deserted.

The centre panel is of a landscape full of torture and mutilation, receding through destruction and fire. Its dominant colours are brown and red in the foreground, darkening to black and flame in the background. Above this, in a bubble of blue sky, Jesus Christ presides, surrounded by angels, the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Baptist, and the Apostles.

The foreground contains many scenes of impalement, torture, and gross physical suffering. These are inflicted by grotesque daemons on naked men and women. There are objects and creatures in common with his other Last Judgement and other paintings: a huge knifeblade, daemons consisting of large heads on feet without a body or legs, and musical instruments such as a lute, although here they are relatively small.

By the middle distance, there are more scenes of armies on the move, and at the right there is a large red flap with prominent spikes, set among rock walls. A limpid black river wends into the background, and further into the distance there are two vessels burning on it. Figures become less frequent in the distance, the landscape comprising ruined buildings which are still on fire. At the left, the sky remains blue, but it is inky black at the right.

Christ is seated on an arc of light, his feet resting on another arc. His hands are outstretched and his chest bare of his red robes. There are two small groups of six or seven Apostles and saints at each end of the arcs. Above them, on the left is the Virgin Mary, and on the right Saint John the Baptist (from his resemblance to Bosch’s earlier painting of him). To the outside of those figures are two angels with straight trumpets on each side; the pair on the left are talking, and one has lowered his instrument. These are almost identical to the equivalent figures in Bosch’s other Last Judgement.

To the left of the angels on the left, a few pious souls are being brought up to Heaven through a break in the clouds.

The right panel is laid out similarly to the centre panel, showing naked figures being tormented and tortured in the foreground, receding to fumaroles of fire amid complete destruction in the background, which is set at night.

In the foreground the daemons are even more gaudy in form and colour. One shoots arrows which impale a naked figure as a target, other figures are run through by swords, and in a mass of flesh on top of a low tower, which has a round mediaeval marquee pitched on it. At the right edge is a large green statue with its head thrown back and gushing flames from its mouth.

Further into the distance there is a boat with no sails, and behind that are ruined buildings silhouetted by leaping flames, which turn into flaming fumaroles in the far distance. The air and sky is full of flames, smoke, and the ashes of utter destruction.

Composition

The major difference in composition from Bosch’s other Last Judgement is the left panel, which here details the story of the Fall of Man, using multiplex narrative technique (or continuous as opposed to monoscenic narrative).

This differs from other contemporary versions of the Last Judgement, in which the centre panel shows the division of people, the left wing those destined for Heaven, and the right wing those doomed to Hell.

The other notable difference is in the sequence from the painting on the exterior: in Bosch’s other Last Judgement, the importance of Christ’s sacrifice in the Passion was made clear, and offered hope with respect to the infernal scenes within (as did its left panel). The Vienna Last Judgement offers almost none of that hope. This may have reflected the growing opinion that the day of the Last Judgement was drawing near.

Details

The three multiplexed scenes showing the Fall of Man in the left panel are separated carefully in space. The use of a human figure to represent the donor of the forbidden fruit is not unusual: the long ‘leg’ shown among the branches of the tree may represent the body of the serpent. Note the possible owl on the rock ledge to the right.

Tortures shown in the foreground of the centre panel include making an already portly man swallow liquid poured from a large barrel, suspension over a fire, lashing to a long lance, and various grinding machines. At the upper left a daemon wears a lute on its head, and there is a daemon with the form of large green bagpipes.

The low tower with its round marquee is a feature of the foreground of the right panel. Inside the marquee are many figures squashed together, and another figure is shown on top of it, apparently blowing a straight trumpet from its rectum.

Making sense of it all

Overall the impression given by this triptych is much darker than Bosch’s other Last Judgement, as there is no offer of redemption, almost no apparent escape. This is more typical of the various apocalyptic movements which arose in Europe at this time, whose message was less ‘repent and be saved’, and more that of inescapable doom.

The details are more disturbingly gruesome and less inventive and fanciful than in Bosch’s previous depictions of similar themes. This is the sort of painting which you would not leave out over the Christmas season, not unless you wanted to drive your congregation to another church.

History

The early copy made by Lucas Cranach the Elder is no guarantee of the involvement of Bosch in the painting of this triptych, but weighs in its favour. Careful studies have revealed several differences in style and technique from those normally seen in works by Bosch, raising the question as to how much he was involved. Arguing for at least some involvement by Bosch, Ilsink et al. conclude that “substantial workshop involvement must be assumed.”

It is believed to have been commissioned by a Burgundian living in Bruges, Hippolyte de Berthoz, although earlier it had been supposed to have been for Philip the Fair. Ilsink et al. suggest that it may have been destined for the Chapel of Saint James in Saint Saviour’s Church in Bruges. It is not known whether it ever got there, and Hippolyte de Berthoz died in 1503.

It does apparently have quite extensive repainted areas from old attempts at its restoration, the last of which took place in 1954. Unfortunately it has not been included in the recent conservation work undertaken by the Bosch Research and Conservation Project. Let’s hope that it soon will be, as that would undoubtedly help research to resolve some of the many questions raised by this triptych.

References

Wikipedia (brief).

Matthijs Ilsink, Jos Koldeweij et al. (2016) pp 290-307 in Hieronymus Bosch, Painter and Draughtsman: Catalogue Raisonné, Yale UP and Mercatorfonds. ISBN 978 0 300 22014 8.

Some painters – Hieronymus Bosch and Arcimboldo, for example – have mature styles which stand out on their own, no other artist (until the twentieth century, at least) coming close. Walk into a room in a gallery, and you can identify one of those mature works from a distance, the style is so uniquely distinctive.

Some have asked me if there is anyone with a style comparable to Bosch, apart from the various imitators of his style. The only artist who springs to mind is Richard Dadd (1817-1886).

Dadd was born in Chatham, Kent, England, at a time when it was a major Royal Naval Dockyard. He showed aptitude at school, so at the age of 20 was admitted to the schools of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He won the medal for life drawing there in 1840, and progressed to being an important and popular painter and illustrator. Together with William Powell Frith, Augustus Egg, and others, he founded (and led) a group known as The Clique.

In late 1842, he worked as the draftsman and artist on an expedition through Europe to Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East. However when he was travelling on the River Nile towards the end of that expedition, he was thought to have been affected by sunstroke, as he suffered from delusions and became increasingly violent. He also believed that he was under the influence of the Egyptian god Osiris.

The following year his mental condition continued, and he was sent to the country to recover. Unfortunately his delusions now told him that his father was the Devil, and in August Dadd murdered his father, and fled to France. While trying to travel to Paris, he tried to kill another person with a razor, was arrested, and confessed to murdering his father.

He was then committed, for the rest of his life, to the care of psychiatric hospitals, notably Bethlem (popularly known as Bedlam), and then Broadmoor, newly established for the ‘criminally insane’. Here his enlightened carers allowed him to continue painting, and he created some of his greatest works. He died in Broadmoor Hospital.

In addition to fairly conventional painting and illustration, Dadd was one of several painters who produced ‘fairy’ works. Others include Robert Huskisson, Joseph Noel Paton, and Daniel Maclise, whose works were shown at the Royal Academy, and became quite popular around 1850. Dadd’s Titania Sleeping (c 1841) is fairly typical of the genre, with its intricately detailed human-like creatures. These have some similarities with Bosch’s figures, but are more closely related to one another.

Come unto These Yellow Sands (1842) shows how some of these fairy paintings became even more spectacular, but remained quite distinct from those of Bosch. Here the figures are also much more human in appearance.

Away from the fairies, Dadd still tended to load his canvases with a lot of figures, and to make some of them appear more odd. The Flight out of Egypt (1849-50) shows this well, and was painted when he was in Bethlem Hospital.

After about 1850, some of his canvases moved away from regular ‘fairy’ paintings to a quite distinctive style which is more closely related to Bosch, as shown in his Contradiction: Oberon and Titania (1854-8). A number of ‘normal’ figures are shown at normal size across the middle of the painting, but around them, painted more in a grisaille, is a dense mixture of natural objects and creatures, and some more bizarre ones.

This culminated in his masterpiece, The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke (1855-64), in which a man wields a golden axe. Around him plants and people are shown in several different scales, and objects are starting to transform in unexpected ways. Given the differences in era and painting style, I think that there is much in common between this work and the mature paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. It would have been fascinating had they been able to discuss their art together.

References

Wikipedia.
Biography and work.
An explanation of the Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke in literary terms.

If you have visited a provincial gallery in the UK, you will probably have stumbled across paintings by James Tissot, a contemporary of the Impressionists who seemed to paint lots of fashionable women in fashionable clothes, a bit like Alfred Stevens. Since his death in 1902, his work first fell into deep disfavour, but in the late twentieth century became more popular again. In the next few articles, I am going to try to discover the real James Tissot, and show a more representative range of his work. This introduction will hopefully whet your appetite.

Jacques Joseph Tissot was born in the busy port of Nantes, France, in 1836. His father was a prosperous draper there, and the family was devoutly Catholic, and dealt daily with women’s fashions and apparel. The young Tissot resolved to become a painter when he was seventeen, but it took a further three years before he could persuade his family to allow him to go to Paris as a student. He had also become an Anglophile, and adopted the name of James at about that time.

In Paris, he first stayed with a family friend, the painter Élie Delaunay (1828-1891), and studied under Hippolyte Flandrin (briefly) and Louis Lamothe (for several years), both former pupils of Ingres. Tissot visited Italy, and copied assiduously in the Louvre. Although Lamothe’s work is now forgotten, he also taught Degas, and made Tissot technically brilliant. He also became friends with Whistler, Degas, and Manet.

James Tissot was first successful in submitting to the Salon in 1859. At that time, he had a fascination with the Middle Ages, which dominated his choice of motifs. He painted a series of scenes based on Goethe’s Faust. In this he was influenced by another largely forgotten painter, the Belgian Baron Henri Leys (1815-1869). Tissot loved this historical romanticism, which was becoming popular in the work of Delaroche, Gérôme, Ingres, and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in the UK. For example, in 1860-1, he painted no less than seven works devoted to Faust and Marguerite.

By 1863, he was moving on from Faust, Marguerite and the influence of Leys, and painted as series of much-admired works based on the theme of the prodigal son.

He then abandoned formally narrative painting and started to paint scenes from modern life. In this he was influenced by the paintings and success of Alfred Stevens, and threw himself into Japonisme too. He was so accomplished in his Japonisme that in 1868 he was appointed drawing master to Prince Akitake, the younger brother of the last Tokugawa shōgun.

Tissot’s life changed dramatically with the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. He served in the National Guard in the defence of Paris, following which he may have become involved in the Commune, perhaps to protect his own property. When the Commune was suppressed, Tissot fled to London, where he arrived in June 1871 with just a hundred francs to his name.

In London, Tissot started with drawings and caricatures for the magazine Vanity Fair, and quickly established himself painting the portraits of men. In 1872 he had two paintings exhibited at the Royal Academy, and his career and business took off. Several of his paintings from this period had underlying, and usually moralising, narratives. He also started to paint on and around the River Thames, following Whistler’s lead, then shipboard scenes often involving migrants, a highly topical theme at that time.

By the mid 1870s, Tissot’s paintings were highly valued but often scorned by the critics, being dismissed as showing ‘vulgar society’. In 1876, he met and fell in love with Kathleen Newton, a beautiful young divorcee who became his model and muse.

Tissot developed his reputation for fine etchings too, and his prints are of uniformly high quality. In 1882, he held a one-man exhibition at the Dudley Gallery, London, containing only eight of his paintings, but his entire output of etchings, and twenty-one pieces of cloisonné enamel.

Among his paintings of 1882 was another series based on the prodigal son story, quite different from his first back in the 1860s. These may have been inspired by Frith’s narrative series of the time. However, fate intervened again in Tissot’s life, when Kathleen Newton died of tuberculosis in late 1882, at the age of 28. Within a few days, he abandoned London and returned to Paris.

He quickly arranged a one-man exhibition with which to kickstart his career there. Although far from being a flop, his paintings had a lukewarm reception, and it was his pastels which proved more successful – he had only started using pastels seriously since his return to France. He responded with a series of large if not monumental paintings of Parisian life, which eventually proved more successful overseas than in Paris.

In 1885, Tissot re-discovered his Catholic faith, and embarked on the most ambitious project of his career, to paint the whole of the the life of Jesus Christ in more than 350 gouache paintings. This coincided with some experiments with the spirit world, and efforts to contact his dead lover.

Over the next decade, Tissot travelled to research locations and period details, and started this enormous task. In the spring of 1894, 270 of his paintings were exhibited in Paris to massive public acclaim. This show visited London in 1896, and toured America in 1898. The whole series of 350 paintings was then published, first in Paris then overseas, in a series of editions lasting until 1910. The critical view was mixed at best, but this was the greatest commercial success of Tissot’s career.

In his final years, Tissot worked on a series showing scenes from the Old Testament, of which he had completed almost a hundred when he died suddenly in 1902. Within a year, his paintings had collapsed in value, and by the 1920s he had been largely forgotten.

References

Wikipedia.

Dolkart JF (ed) (2009) James Tissot, the Life of Christ, Brooklyn Museum and Merrell. ISBN 978 1 8589 4496 8.
Marshall NR & Warner M (1999) James Tissot, Victorian Life / Modern Love, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 08173 2.
Wood C (1986) Tissot, Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 978 0 297 79475 2.

James Tissot (1836–1902) is not known as a narrative painter, but in looking through a lot of his works, it is clear that many tell stories.

As I recounted in my summary of his life and work, his early professional career was based in Paris, and opened with success in the Salon in 1859. Those early years, until about 1862, were dominated by the influence of the Belgian painter Baron Henri Leys (1815-1869), and by Tissot’s love of historical romanticism, particularly set in the Middle Ages.

Henri Leys’ Albrecht Dürer visiting Antwerp in 1520 (1855) gives a good idea of the paintings that Tissot admired most: realist in detail, dominated by earth colours with a wide tonal range but tending towards the dark, and showing gentle historical stories built from a multitude of figures. Like many painters of the day, Leys did not go for the climax or peripeteia of thrilling or strongly emotional stories. He also painted at least one scene derived from Goethe’s Faust.

Many of Tissot’s earliest paintings are liberally based on Goethe’s Faust, as interpreted by Gounod’s opera, which is based on Carré’s play Faust and Marguerite. Hence the character of Gretchen is named Marguerite, the focal figure in Tissot’s works.

Faust, who has sold his soul to the devil in return for everlasting youth, falls madly in love with the pure Marguerite. In Act 3 of the opera, Faust starts to seduce her with exquisite jewellery. He joins Marguerite in her garden, and she allows him to kiss her, before asking him to go away.

Faust and Marguerite in the Garden (1861) shows the couple sat together on a bench, as Faust proceeds with his seduction. He succeeds, gets her pregnant, and then abandons her. Marguerite allows the baby to die, and is shunned and taunted by the locals. She resolves to go to church to repent her sins. The devil brings her visions of her previously happy life in an effort to prevent her from praying, and she faints in the struggle.

When Marguerite recovers from her faint she finally goes to pray: the scene (from Act 4) shown in Tissot’s Marguerite in Church (c 1861). She is here almost cast in the role of the penitent Magdalene, a theme which Tissot was to visit in his later paintings of the life of Christ.

Although a static tableau like Faust and Marguerite in the Garden, Tissot skilfully weaves the story into his composition. Two innocent children kneel in front of a shrine, praying in the normal and obvious manner. Marguerite’s inner turmoil cannot bring her any closer to that shrine, or even to break herself out of her posture of dejection, eyes cast down, hands apart rather than held together in prayer. Above her is a painting of the Last Judgement, which anticipates her own fate in Act 5 of the opera.

Tissot’s explorations of Faust reached a climax in about 1861, and he then painted a series of much-admired works based on the theme of the prodigal son. These are derived from the parable related by Jesus, told in the Gospel of Luke chapter 15 verses 11-32. A father has two sons, of whom the younger asks for his inheritance before the father dies.

That son then squanders his fortune, and becomes destitute to the point where he eats from the pigs’ trough. He then returns home, expecting to be put to work by his father in punishment for his profligacy. His father finds him on the road, welcomes him back, and feasts the return of his prodigal son. The older son is unhappy at this, but his father points out that he now has the entire inheritance, and that his younger brother, who had been lost, has now been found.

The Return of the Prodigal Son (1862) still shows the influence of Leys, but Tissot then launched out more on themes and motifs of his own choosing, and his style became more distinct too.

By the time that he painted A Widow in 1868, he had mastered the subtle juxtaposition of clues to narratives which were often very modern in nature. The widow of the title pauses in her embroidery for a moment and stares in thought into the vague distance. As a young and still attractive woman without a husband, she is at once a bored and listless little girl, and a contented older woman immersed in escapist reading.

At the left is a tray with the remains of drinks, either wine or a fortified wine, which were taken in company with others. Although the widow wears her sombre costume, she has bucked the convention of making herself look as unattractive as possible, and is enjoying the company of the bright flowers beside her. Tissot leaves us to speculate as to her future, rather than condemning her violations of etiquette.

Tissot painted The Farewells soon after his flight to London in the summer of 1871. This couple, separated by the iron rails of a closed gate, are in the dress of the late 1700s. The man stares intently at the woman, his gloved left hand resting on the spikes along the top of the gate, and his ungloved right hand grasps her left. She plays idly with her clothing with her other hand, and looks down, towards their hands.

Reading her clothing, she is dressed very plainly, implying that she was a governess, perhaps. A pair of scissors suspended by string on her left side would fit with that, and they are symbols of the parting which is taking place. This is reinforced by the autumn season, and dead leaves at the lower edge of the canvas. However, there is some hope if the floral symbols are accurate: the ivy in the lower left is indicative of fidelity and marriage, while the holly at the right invokes hope and passion.

The following year, Tissot embarked on a series of paintings and engravings which were set in a tavern on the bank of the River Thames in London, probably in Rotherhithe or Wapping. The first to be exhibited was his An Interesting Story (c 1872), which set the pattern. It is the late 1700s, and an old soldier is telling one or more pretty young women interminable and incomprehensible stories about his military career, with the aid of charts spread out on the table. Here, the story is dubbed ‘interesting’ in irony.

In The Tedious Story (c 1872), there can be no doubt that the young woman has drifted off into a world of her own, one which is far away from the veteran’s charts.

Tissot moved the exterior location further up-river for his Bad News (The Parting) (1872). The soldier is now young, and has just been recalled to duty, to leave the two young women who appear as heartbroken as he does. In the centre of the painting, a small boat full of uniformed soldiers is in transit, presumably coming to take this soldier away with them. Once again Tissot returns to his enduring theme of loss and separation.

In contrast, Too Early (1873) is an insightful social comedy: this group has arrived at the soirée on time, when the social convention is always to be late, so that you are not the first to arrive. The four guests are embarrassed, and do not know what to do, so they stand prominently in the middle of the empty floor, while the hostess prepares the musicians, and the host waits idly at the door.

Tissot never really abandoned those who wanted to read stories in his paintings, but his relationship with Kathleen Newton brought him to focus more on her beauty and their love. Towards the end of her brief life, and his stay in London, he decided to revisit the story of the prodigal son. This time, with the examples of Hogarth, Frith, and others who had painted moralist series, he set the story in the present time, and made a complete set of engravings.

The first of the four paintings in his series The Prodigal Son in Modern Life, The Departure (c 1882) is set in another of his favourite waterside haunts along the Thames. The windows are now grimy, and the light filtered through the smoke of the city. Father, an elderly man, sits giving his younger son advice, having filled that son’s wallet with his share of inheritance. Bags are already packed and ready to go, and under the table a kitten seems to be leaving its litter too. Behind the younger son, one petal has fallen from the nasturtiums which are in a vase.

To the left, the older son stares with disappointed disinterest out towards the river. A sister (or perhaps the older brother’s wife) looks up from her sewing towards the father and son. The next two paintings, or prints, take the younger son out to Japan, where there are clear allusions to immoral conduct, then to the prodigal son’s return on board a ship carrying pigs and cattle.

The final painting (or print), The Fatted Calf (c 1882), shows the prodigal son sharpening a knife with which to carve the roast joint of meat concealed under the silver platter on the table. The older brother has just climbed up from a boat on the river, where his friends remain, and is arguing with the father as to why his younger brother should be welcomed back with a ‘fatted calf’.

There are other cues carefully placed in this painting: climbing on the trellis are nasturtiums, the flowers securely clustered together again. The mother strokes a dog, a symbol of fidelity, and the prodigal son appears to have gained a pretty female partner too.

This series was first exhibited as the centrepiece of his one-man exhibition in the Dudley Gallery, London, in 1882. He finally won a gold medal for it at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, when he was already busy working on his huge series showing the Life of Jesus Christ, which I will cover in another article.

References

Wikipedia.

Marshall NR & Warner M (1999) James Tissot, Victorian Life / Modern Love, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 08173 2.
Wood C (1986) Tissot, Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 978 0 297 79475 2.

One of Bosch’s greatest paintings, the Lisbon triptych is highly original and inventive, in some respects surpassing even his Garden of Earthly Delights as a masterpiece. The fragment in Kansas City has only recently been recognised as being part of another version, the rest of which has been lost.

The Artist: Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516)
The Painting: The Temptation of Saint Anthony, reverse The Arrest of Christ and Christ Carrying the Cross (catalogue raisonné no. 4)
Dates: c 1500-1510, probably between 1500 and 1503
Media: oil on oak panel
Dimensions: left wing 144.8 x 66.5 cm, central panel 145.1 × 132.8 cm, right wing 144.8 × 66.7 cm
Location: Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, Portugal
Credits: Wikimedia Commons.

The Painting: The Temptation of Saint Anthony, fragment (catalogue raisonné no. 3)
Dates: c 1500-1510
Media: oil on oak panel
Dimensions: 38.6 × 25.1 cm
Location: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
Credits: Photo Rik Klein Gotink and image processing Robert G. Erdmann for the Bosch Research and Conservation Project, via Wikimedia Commons.

Documentary records make it clear that Bosch painted several different versions of the Temptation of Saint Anthony, of which it appears that the Lisbon triptych is the sole complete survivor, and the fragment in Kansas City the only remains of another.

Saint Anthony (the Great, of Egypt, the Abbot, etc.) was born in 251 CE to wealthy parents in Lower Egypt. When he was 18, his parents died, and he became an evangelical Christian. He gave his inheritance away, and followed an ascetic life. For fifteen years he lived as a hermit. During this time the devil fought with him, afflicting him with boredom, laziness, and dreams of lustful women. Then the devil beat him unconscious.

Friends found him and brought him back to health, so he went back into the desert for another twenty years. This time the devil afflicted him with visions of wild beasts, snakes, scorpions, etc., but again he fought back. He eventually emerged serene and healthy. He went to Alexandria during the persecution of Christians there, to comfort those in prison. He returned to the desert, where he built a monastic system with his followers.

His attributes are a bell, a pig, a book, the Tau cross (like a capital T), sometimes with a bell pendant. He is commonly shown being tempted in a wilderness, often by naked women, and is associated with fire (“Saint Anthony’s Fire”).

Bosch had already featured Saint Anthony on the left wing of his Hermit Saints Triptych (Venice) (c 1495-1505).

The paintings

The exterior, two grisailles showing Christ being arrested and carrying the cross up to Golgotha, opens to reveal three brightly-coloured panels showing different scenes of the temptation of Saint Anthony.

The exterior consists of two separate scenes of Christ’s Passion, painted in grisaille.

That on the left shows Christ’s arrest in the olive grove, in the still moments just before daybreak. Jesus Christ is shown kneeling prostrate just above the centre, at the near edge of a dense throng of people. Behind him is an armoured angel, and several others bear weapons and shields. In front of Christ another figure kneels, his face turned towards the viewer and his mouth wide open, as if shouting. In the foreground, the Apostle Peter threatens to slice the ear from the cowering figure of the high priest’s servant. Judas makes his departure in the left foreground, the payment hanging in his purse.

On the right, Christ is again just above the centre of the painting, carrying his large and heavy cross on his right shoulder, and assisted by Simon of Cyrene, who is behind and to the right. Around them is a dense crowd of people, including an adult male carrying a baby on his shoulders. In the foreground, the two criminals to be crucified alongside Christ are seen. One is blindfolded, and talking to a priest. The other is seated against a priest, who appears to be hearing his confession. One of their flimsier crucifixes is abandoned on the ground at the right lower corner.

Inside the triptych, the left panel shows Saint Anthony being assisted by three others, as he crosses a small wooden bridge, in a state of complete exhaustion, perhaps after being beaten unconscious by the devil. In the countryside around that group are weird human and portmanteau animal figures. In the sky above, Saint Anthony is seen again, being flown around on the back of another invented animal.

In the immediate foreground there are two strange creatures. To the right, a bird with the bill of a crossbill carries in that bill a letter. That creature wears an inverted blue funnel on its head, and a bright red cloak. It has long, floppy ears with small polka dots on them. Its human legs bear a pair of ice skates, and it skates on those across a frozen stream.

On the left is an invented bird-like creature with a long straight bill, which is swallowing a whole frog. It stands on an egg, the shell of which is broken open to allow a small duck-like creature to be emerging. Under the bridge which Saint Anthony is crossing is a human figure reading from a sheet. Opposite him is a rodent of similar size, and another creature looms behind.

Saint Anthony is slumped forward, his arms hanging vertically downwards. He is supported by three helpers, of whom only one has his face visible (and he wears red robes). It has been suggested that his face may be a self-portrait of Bosch. The other two wear monks’ cowls. They cross the bridge from left to right.

Behind them are more strange figures and creatures. One has a man’s face, bare hindquarters with a tail, and streams liquid from under the tail. It appears to be blowing a set of bagpipes. On the right is a group including a figure with a red cloak and mitre, a reindeer wearing a red cloak, and a large bird with white plumage, a black cowl, and a bill like a black spoonbill.

Behind them a grassy hill is formed over the back of a giant, whose naked buttocks and legs face the viewer, similar to Bosch’s earlier tree-man. The giant’s head pokes out on the other side, an arrow stuck into its forehead. Beside the giant’s left thigh is the front of a cottage built into the hill, with a woman shown at the window.

Further into the distance is a coastal scene with two sailing vessels. The land rises steeply from that coast, and on a craggy hilltop on the right there is a blazing beacon.

In the air above, three bizarre flying creatures are passing. The nearer consists of bat wings and daemons, and on its back is Saint Anthony, his black robes emblazoned with the Greek letter T, Tau. More distant creatures contain fish, an armoured male mermaid, and a boat with a naked man pointing his buttocks at the viewer. A huge fat louse is emitting vapours from its anus and bears a large scythe.

The centre panel shows Saint Anthony at the centre, kneeling in prayer and surrounded by bizarre figures, creatures, and objects, as if in a vision of temptation. In the background a town is burning.

The foreground shows more scenes involving bizarre figures, creatures, and objects. At the left, a jumble of them emerges from the huge shell of a strawberry-like fruit. One of those figures is astride a goose, and playing a harp. In the middle is a small pond, in which a hybrid between a fish and a boat is floating, and a man is seen inside another strange creature.

Further back on the right is a column decorated with reliefs, at the foot of which are several strange figures, one wearing an inverted funnel on its head. A small group at the right edge rides a pitcher on legs and a huge rat. Saint Anthony is kneeling opposite the figure of a nun, but looking directly at the viewer.

Behind and to the left of him further figures are seated and standing around a circular white table. To the left are more weird figures apparently moving towards the middle of the panel. Dominating the middle ground, behind the saint, are the ruins of an old tower, within which a priest is praying by a lifelike crucifix.

Stretching into the distance at the right, the tower appears linked to a more substantial tiered building, which terminates in a large egg-shaped tower. Various figures are on this building, including a naked person with their hands held above their head.

In the distance on the left is a town on fire. The nearest farm and buildings are not burning, but a little army is crossing a small hump-backed bridge in front of them. Further back the buildings are silhouetted by the orange and red of rising flames, against the palls of smoke and night sky. In the air are several curious flying machines and creatures, including an armoured ship and a huge goose with the after-end of a sailing ship.

The right panel shows Saint Anthony seated, with a book open in front of him. He is again surrounded by strange figures and creatures from a vision of temptation. The background shows a prominent windmill and towers, behind which is a wintry landscape with snow on the ground.

In the foreground, in front of the saint, is a circular table, half-covered with a white tablecloth. The table is supported by naked human figures, one of whom has his left foot in a large pot. Another wears an armoured glove which is brandishing a heavy scimitar, but a creature has passed a thin-bladed sword through its neck. At the left edge of the table, another naked human is blowing a curiously curved trumpet. To the right an abdomen with ears and legs, wrapped in a red cloth hat, has a sword stuck into it.

Saint Anthony sits on a small earth slab, a book open in front of him. Although his body is orientated to the left and into the distance, he is looking to the lower left of the panel, where the table is. He wears dark brown hooded monastic robes, and his right hand holds a stick out in front of him. The left shoulder of the robes bears a Greek letter T, Tau.

In front of him, slightly deeper into the distance, is another group of figures, daemons, and objects, clustered around the hollow trunk of a dead tree. Inside the hollow, a naked woman peers out. The tree is draped with a scarlet sheet, under and on which there are several daemons. At the top, an old person pours liquid from a ewer into the bowl held up by a daemon below. A bird resembling a woodpecker is perched on one of the upper branches. At the right edge, a shortened person in a scarlet robe walks off to the right using a wheeled walking frame.

The middle distance consists of a European-style windmill at the left, and two large tower-like structures on the far side of a moat. A figure fights a monster in that moat, bearing a sword at it. Armies are massed on ramparts connecting the towers, and on the top of the left tower there is a fire.

Behind those fortifications is an open space, in which people are gathering in a group, and a northern European town, with a church and spire. Beyond that is rolling countryside, with another windmill on the horizon.

The salient object in the sky is a huge fish, on which a man and woman are seated. The man holds a long rod on his right shoulder, at the far end of which is a lantern.

The Kansas City fragment

Saint Anthony fills the upper half, with him kneeling down, holding a pitcher in his right hand, filling it with water by immersion. He wears a heavy black cloak, with the letter Tau emblazoned on the front right.

In front of him are bizarre creatures, some floating on the surface of the water. These include a cloaked creature with the bill of a spoonbill, at a circular table-top covered with a white cloth. Others include a frog and a turtle. A fish with visible fangs is apparently walking on the bank, and there is an inverted funnel with human legs and arms, brandishing a curved sword in its right hand, and a shield in its left.

Composition

Most depictions of the Temptation of Saint Anthony, a relatively popular subject for religious paintings at that time, are inevitably more conventional. However, his visions are often shown in a manner which is more imaginative than other religious subjects, and has repeatedly given rise to strange scenes.

Very slightly later than Bosch, Matthias Grünewald’s diptych of the Visit of St Anthony to St Paul and Temptation of St Anthony (c 1515) shows this well: although some of the vegetation in the left panel is fairly exotic, the right panel is packed with all manner of extraordinary beasts and monsters.

A century later, Jan Brueghel the Elder’s The Temptation of Saint Anthony (c 1610) shows how this had almost become traditional practice. It is tempting to speculate that Bosch’s apparently well-known paintings of the Temptation may have encouraged others to paint so imaginatively.

The composition and fantastic details of these paintings by Bosch are quite different from others, and distinctively Bosch. From his use of vast fruit, through distant massing armies, to his characteristic flying contraptions, they are rich in his most unusual iconography.

Details

The skating crossbill in the foreground of the left panel bears a letter against Saint Anthony. The badge shown on its left breast is that of freemasonry, and its curious inverted funnel hat occurs repeatedly in Bosch’s later paintings.

Things are no less strange up in the sky, where three fantastic contraptions fly in convoy. That bearing Saint Anthony consists of a portmanteau of a bat (or winged frog) with daemons, one of which holds a long-handled mallet. The saint is distinguished by the Tau cross on his robes.

The figures by Saint Anthony on the central panel show an extraordinary range of features, including a horn-like bill, a porcine snout, and Medusan hair. Common to his other paintings are musical instruments, including a lute and hurdy-gurdy, and the more prominent owl in this triptych, here perched on the black pig-knight’s head. This passage may include the saint’s attempted seduction by a beautiful queen.

The reliefs on the column shows scenes from Old Testament stories: at the top is the dance around the golden calf from the journey to the Promised Land; below that is a scene of idolatry, and at the bottom two figures carry an outsized bunch of grapes, the scouts which Moses sent on ahead into the Promised Land.

The mounted group below the column is probably a parody of the Flight to Egypt, with an aged Joseph, the Virgin Mary as a tree creature, clutching a baby in swaddling bands. At the lower left of this detail is another figure wearing an inverted funnel on his head.

A second, less obvious, owl appears in a hole just over halfway up the pillar of reliefs.

The distant burning town has been painted in great detail, including its blazing church. The skies around are dotted with angels in flight, including one carrying a stepladder.

The right panel is less complex in its content, although Saint Anthony and the temptations in front of him are still intricate and rich in fine details.

The background of the right panel appears less finished, with the windmill at the left being quite sketchy still, and the more distant buildings painted in very simply. This may of course reflect later overpainting by way of retouching, rather than Bosch’s original paint layer. The armies on the battlements appear to be laying siege to the towers.

Making sense of it all

The elaborate iconography of this painting has been much less studied than, say, Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, but appears just as complex. At a superficial level, it is easy to dismiss them as fanciful representations of the visions with which the devil tempted Saint Anthony, but that does not explain their many peculiarities.

For example, common to the Lisbon triptych and the Kansas City fragment is the use of inverted funnels as hats. Not seen in Bosch’s earlier works, they are known from miniatures of the late 1100s as symbolic dress of Jews.

Round white tables are another unusual and repeated image in both paintings, and in other circumstances might be associated with cardplay and gaming. But here Bosch refrains from that allusion, and puts a ewer or jug on them.

His aerial contraptions are a more consistent feature of earlier paintings, but it is puzzling that the left panel might show the saint being conveyed to heaven on one. Neither is it clear why he is shown twice in that same panel.

There is still much to learn about the more detailed reading of this remarkable triptych. For the moment, it is probably best summarised as showing how Saint Anthony was able to resist these almost overwhelming temptations, in peace and calm, as a result of the sacrifice made by Jesus Christ when he suffered and died on the cross (the theme of the exterior).

History

This appears to have been long accepted as the original work of Bosch, although it is thought that many copies were made of it at the time. There is no evidence to suggest that the Lisbon triptych was such a copy, and ample to conclude that it is one of the originals.

It is believed to have been commissioned by a Burgundian living in Bruges, Hippolyte de Berthoz, passed on to his son on the father’s death in 1503, then sold on to Duke Philip the Fair, the Duke of Burgundy, in 1505.

References

Wikipedia.

Matthijs Ilsink, Jos Koldeweij et al. (2016) pp 132-159 in Hieronymus Bosch, Painter and Draughtsman: Catalogue Raisonné, Yale UP and Mercatorfonds. ISBN 978 0 300 22014 8.

Paintings of scenes from the hagiographies of Christian saints have been enduring favourites, particularly for those churches dedicated to each saint, and for sponsors named after a saint. The lives of some saints are sufficiently complicated as to offer the artist a choice of different scenes, but in the case of Saint Anthony the Great (of Egypt, the Abbot, etc.), paintings are almost completely confined to his temptation by the devil.

Saint Anthony was born in 251 CE to wealthy parents in Lower Egypt. When he was 18, his parents died, and he became an evangelical Christian. He gave his inheritance away, and followed an ascetic life. For fifteen years he lived as a hermit. During this time the devil fought with him, afflicting him with boredom, laziness, and dreams of lustful women. Then the devil beat him unconscious.

Friends found him and brought him back to health, so he went back into the desert for another twenty years. This time the devil afflicted him with visions of wild beasts, snakes, scorpions, etc., but again he fought back. He eventually emerged serene and healthy. He went to Alexandria during the persecution of Christians there, to comfort those in prison. He returned to the desert, where he built a monastic system with his followers.

His attributes are a bell, a pig, a book, the Tau cross (like a capital T), sometimes with a bell pendant. He is commonly shown being tempted in a wilderness, often by naked women, and is associated with fire (“Saint Anthony’s Fire”).

The visionary nature of his temptation, and the temptations offered him, give a painter a wonderful opportunity to exercise their imagination, and to include content which would otherwise be excluded from places of worship. I have just given a detailed account of Bosch’s masterwork, his triptych showing The Temptation of Saint Anthony (c 1500-10), which is to my mind the wildest, most fascinating, and greatest painting of this saint.

This pair of articles looks at other notable paintings of the same motif, to see in particular what influence Bosch’s paintings had on others, and how his Lisbon triptych stands in comparison. This article covers paintings before 1560, and the next will cover the period from 1570 to the start of the twentieth century.

Painted in 1430-32, Stefano di Giovanni’s St Antony Beaten by the Devils identifies the saint by his Tau crucifix. Three devils, clearly fallen angels by their wings, are beating him with clubs. Those devils are fairly conventional figures, part animal and part man, with horns.

The Master of the Osservanza’s painting from about the same time, around 1435, has a similar simple landscape, but here Saint Anthony is being tempted by a woman. She is angelic, by her wings, pretty, but fully clad, and modestly so too.

The miniature Saint Anthony and the Lobster Devil illustrates the source of many hagiographies, Jacobus de Voragine’s La Légende Dorée (Legenda aurea, Golden Legend), which was often used as a reference by artists. The devils shown tormenting the saint have become much more imaginative in form. One is based on a lobster, two have accessory faces in their abdomens, and they are starting to depart from nature.

Michelangelo’s The Torment of Saint Anthony (c 1487–88) continues that trend. Saint Anthony is now being held aloft by ten or so devils, including a weird fish with many spines and a trunk-like snout. The devil at the lower left of the group has breasts and a face in its perineum, which almost makes it double-ended.

The left wing of Bosch’s Hermit Saints triptych of around 1500 is a significant departure from its predecessors. The invented creatures are not simple devils tormenting the saint directly, but populate the visionary world. Those creatures and others in his panel are much more originally inventive too: the head with feet attached at the bottom left is like nothing which has preceded it. Bosch makes more specific visual references to details in the Golden Legend, such as being tempted by a naked woman. He also manipulates scale in a highly innovative way.

His probably slightly later triptych of The Temptation of Saint Anthony (Lisbon) develops this even further, with his own pantheon of rearranged humans and composite creatures.

Grünewald’s slightly later diptych provides useful contrast between the conventional Visit of St Anthony to St Paul on the left, and his Temptation of St Anthony (c 1515) on the right. These daemons are quite different from Bosch’s, but are nevertheless highly imaginative in their appearance.

This painting in the Chrysler is one of several now attributed to followers of Bosch. Similar in tone, and using common elements such as the burning buildings, most of its figures, creatures, and inanimate objects are conventional and come from the real world, even though they may here be behaving rather differently from normal.

Another painting now attributed to a follower of Hieronymus Bosch, in the Prado, features weird creatures, some incorporating Bosch’s portmanteau constructions. Saint Anthony also has a pig resting beside him, to help identify him. However, these are small devices inside a much more conventional view, and lack the pervasive otherworldliness of Bosch’s triptych.

The outside of the left panel of Niklaus Manuel’s Antonius altar shows Demons Tormenting St. Anthony (1520). Its daemons, and the wooden clubs with which they attack the saint, are inventive, but still rooted in Stefano di Giovanni’s of a century before.

Jan Wellens de Cock’s painting of about 1520 is fundamentally still based on real figures and objects, including the slightly oddly-proportioned nude women and their jewels. But tucked away in some of its recesses are composites resembling some of those invented by Bosch. A town is also alight up in the top right corner, and in a high fork in the prominent tree, there is an owl. I wonder whether these embellishments were intended at its outset.

Lucas van Leyden’s painting of about 1530 appears to have been directly influenced by Bosch. Leading its small procession of strange creatures is a man with a bird’s head, and a long bill, who wears ice-skates, clearly derived from the creature bearing a note in the foreground of the left wing of Bosch’s triptych. There are several other familiar features in those creatures, but the rest of the painting is far more conventional.

By about 1540, Cornelis Massijs was still content to paint an almost completely realist image, showing Saint Anthony with two naked women, and another who may be their procuress. But once again there are some small decorations – a pot-bellied man, a creature with an inverted funnel on its head, and a little group at the right – which seem to have invaded from the mind of Bosch.

When we reach Pieter Coecke van Aelst in 1543-1550, the emphasis has changed completely. There are still three normal human figures, of the saint, a tempting nude, and her procuress behind, but the rest of the painting is filled with Bosch derivatives, such as the nun with wings biting someone’s leg, in the foreground. The burning town also makes an appearance in the left distance.

Most of those paintings were made in northern Europe. Looking back at the south, in 1552-3 Paolo Veronese had a profoundly different conception. Saint Anthony is not the bearded and bald old man of the north, but almost a parody of the well-muscled, grappling with a pretty young woman whose left breast seems to have become accidentally bared. Clearly Veronese had not encountered the works of Bosch.

The previous article told the story behind the many paintings of the Temptation of Saint Anthony, and I showed examples from 1430 to 1560. These demonstrated the influence of Bosch’s highly individualistic paintings, particularly his triptych now in Lisbon, at least in northern European painting.

Although the artist who painted this work in about 1575 is not known, it appears to have originated in northern Europe, and has fantastic creatures which are still rooted in the real world. There are some indications of potential influence from Bosch, such as the red creature with a trumpet-like snout, but most remain more traditional.

Pieter Huys’s painting of 1577 is more obviously a derivative from Bosch. Saint Anthony could almost have been copied from one of the earlier paintings, and most of the strange figures and creatures have been borrowed and re-interpreted. Musical instruments such as the lute and harp make an appearance, but many of the symbols have been changed. For example, where Bosch’s triptych features round tables with a white cloth, Huys opts for a rectangular table. And the background has a town burning even more violently.

Maerten de Vos’s vision of 1591-4 follows a more traditional line again, although it contains some strange elements which appear more personal. He shows one Saint Antony apparently carrying another, unconscious Saint Anthony in his arms, rather than the saint supported by friends. There is a third version of the saint flying in the air, surrounded by daemons, too.

That unconscious saint points to a pig, a recognised attribute, but nearby is a pair of lions. One of the more Bosch-like creatures in the right foreground is a portmanteau of human and bird, wears an inverted funnel on its head, and is reading sheet music.

Just a century after Bosch painted his triptych, Jan Brueghel the Elder combines a cavalcade of more traditional figures with a foreground of more bizarre ones derived from Bosch, including an old person’s head with four human legs, and a bird with two heads, one of a cockerel and the other a duck with a clarinet-like bill. A second image of the saint appears in the sky, surrounded by daemons, and a church is on fire in the background.

Roelandt Savery’s Landscape with the Temptation of Saint Anthony (1617) is an unusual painting in which the religious content is hidden away in the bottom left corner; the daemons and other creatures there appear to have had a little influence from Bosch, but the great majority of the work is a landscape, and not that of a wilderness either.

By about 1650, Joos van Craesbeeck was using some of Bosch’s iconography with his own developments. The use of a human head as a container is probably derived from Bosch’s tree-man and similar devices, but here has become even more realistic. To the right of that, a naked man sits facing backwards on a duck-horse: he is playing a stringed musical instrument, and wearing an inverted funnel on his head. Van Craesbeeck’s humans seem to have grown small red tails too.

Oddly, van Craesbeeck does not place the Greek letter Tau on the saint’s robes, but the Roman letter A, perhaps monogrammed with the Tau. That appears to be unique to this painting.

The prolific David Teniers the Younger painted several versions of the Temptation of Saint Anthony after about 1650. Most, like this painting now in Lille, show an ordinary landscape with the saint, with the addition of his own species of daemons. Some of these re-use ideas first seen in Bosch’s triptych, such as that of a single figure on the back of a flying narwhal; that figure is wearing an inverted funnel on its head.

Another of Teniers’ paintings, currently in the Prado, shows three fairly normal humans in a menagerie of daemons, some of which clearly have their origins in Bosch’s work. The figure flying on a fish has changed from the previous painting, but still wears its distinctive inverted funnel.

This third version, now in Tokyo, repeats many of the same daemons in a different setting, retaining the figure wearing the inverted funnel in close aerial combat.

Almost two centuries after Bosch’s triptych, more radically different and inventive approaches appear, here in Domenicus van Wijnen’s painting of about 1685. Its daemons are much more human in form, and have proliferated in a way more common in the ‘fairie paintings’ seen around 1840, including some by Richard Dadd.

Southern European painters were much more likely to keep to more traditional figurative compositions, as used by Tiepolo in about 1740. This is surprising, given the presence of Bosch’s paintings in major collections in both Madrid and Venice.

Depictions of the Temptation of Saint Anthony remained popular even through the 1800s, although by this time Bosch’s triptych seems to have become long forgotten, and painters seemed no longer to need such excuses to exercise their imagination and inventiveness. The long-awaited publication of Gustave Flaubert’s book The Temptation of Saint Anthony, written as a script for a play, in 1874 brought renewed interest, and a succession of paintings from Henri Fantin-Latour (c 1875, above), Paul Cézanne (c 1875, below), Gustave Moreau (a watercolour), and Fernand Khnopff (1883).

Cézanne shows the shadowy figure of Saint Anthony slumped against a bush at the left, his arms held out to shield himself from the temptations. The devil is shown, in stereotypical form, wearing red robes, with an animal head and horns, behind Saint Anthony. In front of them is the naked Queen of Sheba, her right arm held high to accentuate her form. Around her are naked (but not black) children. In front of Saint Anthony is a black bag presumably containing money, and a book.

The influential Neapolitan realist Domenico Morelli painted this stark work in 1878, perhaps the exact antithesis of the rich imagery which had developed since the Renaissance.

That same year, Félicien Rops painted his satirical and irreverent version, which has more subtle details. Bound to the cross in Saint Anthony’s tempting vision is a visibly voluptuous woman, the word EROS replacing the normal initialism of INRI (Iēsūs/Iēsus Nazarēnus, Rēx Iūdaeōrum, meaning Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews) shown above Christ’s head. Christ himself, with full stigmata, has been knocked sideways to accommodate the woman’s naked body. Behind the cross the horned devil wears scarlet robes and pulls faces. Behind him is a pig, Anthony’s attribute. The two daemonic putti are decidedly not references to Bosch.

Lovis Corinth painted two versions of the Temptation. The earlier, in 1897, shows Anthony surrounded by beautiful and naked women, offering him fruit, other food, and their bodies. The daemons have faded into the background, and are caricatures based on humans.

His later painting, explicitly painted after Gustave Flaubert, in 1908, brings in the Queen of Sheba, an elephant and monkey, but is also notable for depicting Anthony as a young man. Even Salvador Dalí’s 1946 painting of the Temptation steers clear of Bosch’s imagery, although it does at least return to the concept of an individualistic and inventive vision.

Conclusions

I have surveyed four paintings from the 1400s, before Bosch’s triptych was painted, Bosch’s two paintings (the left wing of the Hermit Saints triptych, and the triptych now in Lisbon), eleven subsequent paintings from the 1500s, seven from the 1600s, one from the 1700s, seven from the 1800s, and two from the 1900s: a total of 34 paintings over a period of just over 500 years.

Bosch’s triptych had a clear visual influence on many of the paintings produced in northern Europe during the 1500s and 1600s. This was reflected in many of the daemons shown in them, particularly the peculiar use of the inverted funnel as a hat, a symbol which had previously been used to indicate Jews in miniatures in the late 1100s. It has also commonly led to a background in which buildings were burning. This may have arisen with the use of common source material, but is more likely the result of later artists having seen Bosch’s paintings.

Prior to Bosch, and after 1700, daemons shown were more obviously derivatives of human figures, with classical features such as tails and horns, which remained characteristic of paintings made in southern Europe throughout the period. It is not clear why Bosch’s influence should have vanished after 1700, though.

Accepted as being four separate paintings until the 1960s, by 2001 it was clear that this group are the remains of a triptych, whose central panel is still missing. Their theme appears to be Everyman’s journey through life, and the choices throughout life between good and evil.

The Artist: Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516)
The Painting: The Wayfarer Triptych, fragments (catalogue raisonné no. 19)
Dates: c 1500-1510
Media: oil on oak panel

consisting of:

The Painting: The Wayfarer, exterior (catalogue raisonné no. 19A)
Dimensions: 71.3 x 70.7 cm
Location: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Credits: Wikimedia Commons.

The Painting: The Ship of Fools, fragment of left wing (catalogue raisonné no. 19B)
Dimensions: 58.1 x 32.8 cm
Location: Musée du Louvre, Paris
Credits: Wikimedia Commons.

The Painting: Gluttony and Lust, fragment of left wing (catalogue raisonné no. 19C)
Dimensions: 34.9 x 30.6 cm
Location: Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
Credits: Wikimedia Commons.

The Painting: Death and the Miser, right wing (catalogue raisonné no. 19D)
Dimensions: 94.3 x 32.4 cm
Location: The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Credits: Wikimedia Commons.

Until more detailed analyses were undertaken of these four paintings during the late twentieth century, it had been assumed that they were four separate works. Key to understanding their relationship was The Wayfarer (or Pedlar) itself, which had been turned into a separate octagonal tondo by cutting down and fastening together its two halves, which had originally formed the exterior of the triptych.

Since then the interior of the wings have been reconstructed: The Ship of Fools and Gluttony and Lust form the left wing, and Death and the Miser the right wing. As the centre panel is still missing, it is hard to establish the overall theme of the triptych. I will therefore avoid speculation as much as possible and describe it on the basis of the fragments which we have.

The paintings

The exterior is a circular tondo showing the figure of a travelling man in the foreground, against a countryside background with a single tumbledown building.

The man is thin and gaunt, and looks slightly anxiously towards the lower left of the panel. He wears ad hoc clothing for walking: a long-tailed jacket and trousers, with a soft cloth chaperon hat. His clothes are tatty, in need of repair, and a dull grey-brown. The right knee of the trousers has a large hole, and the left lower leg is pulled up above a dirty bandage tied around that a wound in that leg. His footwear is odd, with a short black boot on the right foot, and a low, flat black ‘mule’ on the left.

In his left hand, he carries a brimmed hat, which has a bobbin stuck into it, and in his right hand a walking stick, which he holds upside down, its club-like handle close to the ground by his right foot. He has a knife in a sheath secured to his belt, and carries on his back a large wickerwork pack, which is secured across his chest. Attached to the outside of the pack is a ladle, and an animal skin.

Behind him, on the left of the painting, is a dog cowed and possibly growling towards him. Behind that is a sow and half a dozen piglets feeding at a small trough. There are also a couple of chickens. Behind the animals is a dilapidated building, which bears the sign of a white swan outside. In the doorway, a man is conducting negotiations with a woman. Another woman looks out from a broken window. At the left there is a bird in a cage, and at the right side of the building a man is urinating by a small fence.

To the right of the painting is a small field gate and a tree, behind which is a single magpie on the ground, and a cow. In the distance there is rolling open countryside with scattered trees and a few buildings.

The left wing shows a ‘ship of fools’ in its upper section, below which are scenes of gluttony and lust, on the water and the bank.

The ‘ship of fools’ is actually a small boat, into which six men and two women are packed tight. Its mast is unrealistically high, bears no sail, and has a large branch lashed to the top of it, in which is an owl. The occupants are engaged in drinking, eating what appear to be cherries from a small rectangular tabletop, and singing to the accompaniment of a lute being played by one of the women.

One man at the bow is vomiting overboard, near a large fish which is strung from the branch of a small tree. Another of the passengers holds a large spoon-like paddle, which would be of little or no use either for propulsion or steering.

There are four additional characters (all men): two are swimming by the side of the boat, one, dressed as a fool, is perched high up forward in among the rigging, and the fourth has climbed a tree on the bank to try to cut down the carcass of a chicken from high up the mast. The vessel flies a long red pendant from high on its mast, with a gold crescent moon on it. The distance shows relatively flat countryside.

In the foreground, a round and very portly man (who wears an inverted funnel on his head) sits astride a floating barrel, which is being pushed through the water by three swimmers. A fourth swimmer catches liquid which is squirting from a hole in the end of the barrel. Nearby a swimmer carries a large salver of food on their head, and appears to be making for the shore.

On the shore is a red tent, inside which a man and woman are close to one another and drinking together, beside a round white-topped table. Strewn on the bank in the immediate foreground are items of clothing of the swimmers, including shoes (clogs), hats, a belt with a knife in a sheath, and various garments. An armoured glove hangs from a bush at the left.

The right wing shows a frail and emaciated man in bed, being tended to by an angel, with a devil poised above him, and the figure of death coming in through the door.

The scene is a barrel-vaulted bedroom which goes deep, and is furnished with a large bed with a canopy and side-curtains. At the foot of the bed is a large chest containing money and valuables. In the foreground, the bedroom ends in a pillar at each side, with a low wall joining them. Garments are laid on that wall, and items of knightly armour just outside it. The latter includes a helmet, sword, shield, an armoured glove, and a lance.

An old man, presumably a servant, wearing green robes, with a walking stick and rosary, stands on the right of the chest, his right hand extending into a bag of gold coins inside the chest. The key to the chest is suspended from his belt. The thin man in bed sits upright, against a high bolster and pillows. A bag of money is on the bed in front of him, being held by a small devil. On that man’s left side (to the right in the painting) is a winged angel, who holds the man’s left shoulder. The angel looks up and holds his right hand towards a crucifix which is placed against a window high in the wall.

The figure of death is shown as a skull on a near-skeletal body and limbs, holding a long silver arrow in its right hand. That arrow points towards the man in bed. Peering over the canopy above the bed is a small devil who holds a lantern on a rod. More devils are seen under the chest, one holding up a document with a red seal on it. Another devil is looking over the frontmost low wall, by the garments laid on it.

Details

The dilapidated building shown on the exterior is without doubt intended to be a brothel, which has no sanitary facilities, but encourages drinking.

The boating party are seen engaged in lustful and drunken activities, once again showing Bosch’s association between music and sin, and the symbolism of fruit. The man and woman seated opposite one another by the tabletop, providing the musical entertainment, appear to be a monk and a nun.

With the figure of death about to deal its fatal blow, the miser in bed is faced with the choice between right (represented by the angel and crucifix) and wrong (the various devils).

Making sense of it all

The exterior painting and wings convey a simple moralistic story about the human journey through life, its many temptations and choices, and their consequences.

The exterior is intended to represent the pilgrim making his journey through life, much as he does in allegorical literature such as John Bunyan’s later Pilgrim’s Progress, rather than as a figure on a real pilgrimage. His pack does not necessarily contain goods for sale, which might have made him a pedlar, as has been suggested.

Ilsink et al. trace the ship of fools to Das Narrenschiff, by Sebastian Brant, published in 1494, although this visual recreation is Bosch’s alone. The boat shown has no sails set, and is pointing into the wind in any case, unable to make any headway. It is overloaded and unstable too: an excellent allegory for those on board and their indulgence in sin.

The miser is about to die, and even at this late moment an angel offers him the chance of repentance, and redemption of his soul through Christ crucified. So too do the devils entice him to grasp his money and worldly ways, and descend to hell.

History

No one knows when the original triptych was broken up, and the provenance of the surviving fragments dates back no more than two centuries. As a result, each has undergone considerable modification, including parts which have been overpainted, and altered their appearance significantly.

It has been claimed that the underdrawings should be attributed to a left-handed artist, and that Bosch is supposed to have been right-handed. Ilsink et al. doubt that the underdrawings of these panels were necessarily painted by a left-hander, and consider that even if they were, the finished paintings were made by Bosch himself. It is also a matter of dispute as to whether Bosch was left- or right-handed.

Reference

Matthijs Ilsink, Jos Koldeweij et al. (2016) pp 316-335 in Hieronymus Bosch, Painter and Draughtsman: Catalogue Raisonné, Yale UP and Mercatorfonds. ISBN 978 0 300 22014 8.