Page 135 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

THE REALM OF THE SPIRIT
It is easy to overstate the extent to which the Nowhere are these apocalyptic sentiments
Renaissance in Europe brought about a revolu- better reflected than in the art of northern
tion in man's outlook on the world. In numer- Europe. There the circumstances that were to
ous ways medieval concepts continued to climax in the Reformation led to a heightened
influence many of the principal figures of our sense of religious anxiety. Thus Albrecht Durer,
period, Columbus among them. Their view of though one of the major humanistic artists of
history was not the secularized one that pre- the age, also published a famous series of
vails today. They believed fervently in the woodcuts of the Apocalypse and, in a highly
coming end of historical time as foretold in the personal drawing, recorded his fearful dream of
Book of Revelation, in a bitter struggle with the the destruction of the world. Perhaps the most
forces of evil and the establishment of God's gripping of all renderings of the struggle
kingdom on earth. They keenly felt the call of between the forces of good and evil occurs in
the Biblical injunction to effect the final con- Hieronymus Bosch's depictions of the Tempta-
version of all the world's races to Christianity. tion of Saint Anthony.

l8
Hieronymus Bosch culture (see Bax 1979 and Vandenbroek 1987).
case of Bosch's imagery
In the
tempta-
of the
c. 1450?-1516 tions of Saint Anthony, the meaning was clear to
TEMPTATION OF SAINT ANTHONY at least one sixteenth-century viewer, the critic
Felipe de Guevara. In his Commentaries on Paint-
c. 1500-1505 ing (Commentarios de la pintura) of around 1560,
oil on wood Guevara considered Bosch's interest in depicting
2
center panel 131.5 x 119 (5^/4 x 46 /2), each wing devilish creatures, noting that the artist "painted
5
2
131.5 x 53 (5i /4 x 2o /s) strange figures, but he did so only because he
references: Cuttler 2957, 109-124; Baldass 1959, wanted to portray scenes of Hell, and for that sub-
240-241, figs. 86-98, 123-126; Cinotti 1966, no. 43,
pis. XLII-XLVII; Gibson 1973, 138-152; Snyder 1973, ject matter it was necessary to depict devils and
28-41; Bax 1979, 1-178; Unverfehrt 1980, 309 (for imagine them in unusual compositions." A Span-
index); Gibson 1983, 105-109; Massing 1984; ish cleric, the learned Fray Jose de Sigiienza, gave
Vandenbroek 1987 a more extensive account of the nature of Bosch's
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon art in his History of the Order of Saint Jerome
(Historia de la Orden de San Jeronimo), published
In the twentieth century, Hieronymus Bosch is in 1605. Sigiienza found Bosch worthy of com-
perhaps as famous as he is misunderstood. He was ment for various reasons: "first, because his great
born and spent his life in 's-Hertogenbosch, the inventiveness merits it; second, because [his
town in Brabant from which he took his name. He works] are commonly called... absurdities... by
was baptized Jeroen van Aken and was both the people who observe little in what they look at;
son and the grandson of painters. Not much is and third, because... people consider them with-
known about his life, but there are a few refer- out reason as having been tainted by heresy." When closed, the triptych displays on its wings
ences to him in archival documents, especially Sigiienza divided Bosch's works into three groups, two scenes of the Passion of Christ, which are
those relating to the Brotherhood of Our Lady which he characterized respectively as devotional painted in monochrome except for some brown
(Li eve Vrouwe Breeders chap). It was in the chapel subjects, various versions of the Temptations of and bluish tones. On the left is the Capture of
of Our Lady — the chapel of the brotherhood — Saint Anthony, and paintings of more complex Christ in Gethsemane, including in the fore-
that Hieronymous Bosch was buried, on 9 iconography, such as The Haywain or The Garden ground the episodes of Judas fleeing with his
August 1516. of Earthly Delights (both Prado, Madrid). money and Saint Peter cutting off the ear of Mal-
Many attempts have been made to unravel the Of all Bosch's versions of the temptations of chus. On the right-hand panel is Christ falling
"mystery" of Bosch's art. Some interpretations Saint Anthony, the Lisbon triptych is the most under his cross, with Veronica kneeling before
emphasize the influence of writings of the Dutch extraordinary, testifying not only to the formal him; in the foreground, amid the desolation
mystics, while others turn to astrology or alchemy and iconographic inventiveness of Hieronymus of Golgotha, are the two thieves confessing
to explain the artist's symbolism. A more pro- Bosch, but also to his outstanding skill as a their sins.
ductive approach, however, is to examine Bosch's painter, for the triptych has come down to us in When opened, the triptych shows Saint
painting in relation to iconographic traditions of pristine condition. It is traditionally placed in the Anthony subjected to a wide range of devilish
the time and to consider the influence it had on first decade of the sixteenth century, probably delusions. On the left wing are scenes from the
his immediate sixteenth-century successors. between 1500 and 1505 or slightly later. When the saint's life described by the early Christian writer
Bosch's art becomes less perplexing when seen in triptych came to Portugal is unknown; it is first Athanasius and found in abbreviated form in later
the context of contemporary religious and socio- recorded in the nineteenth century in the Palacio da works, such as Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum
cultural conventions, especially those of popular Ajuda (Real Palacio das Necessidades) in Lisbon. historiale (Mirror of History) and Jacopo da Vora-

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