Page 136 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

gine's Legenda aurea (Golden Legend}. After meant the aerial attack to represent a different naked in a stream —the Devil, again, in this case
having been attacked by devils and left half dead scene in the life of the saint, namely his moment disguised as a queen. As in the left-hand panel,
in the desert, Anthony was rescued by a friend of ecstasy, when he saw himself struggling in the the whole composition swarms with a crew of
who took him home. When he recovered con- air with his enemies. Bosch was probably familiar monsters and demons who take on the most
sciousness, the saint asked to be brought back to with Martin Schongauer's engraving representing extraordinary forms to bring the saint and the
the desert to fight the devil on his own ground. In this scene (see Massing 1984, 220-236), and he world to damnation.
the painting the saint is being carried by three must have known the text in which Anthony "felt The devilish temptations become almost over-
companions back to his tomblike "cave," which has himself carried off in spirit... Then he also saw whelming in the central panel, in which the
been taken over by the devil; a woman, clearly a loathsome and terrible beings... preventing him oppressed saint kneels in front of an altar, set up
prostitute, can be seen at the window. Up in the from passing through," thus trying to thwart his inside a broken-down structure — a haven from
air, the saint is seen enduring another tribulation, mystical experience. In the end, the devils had to the torments of sin, with Christ pointing to a cru-
usually described as the devil's second assault on set the saint free. In the painting the devils lurk- cifix. All around Satan triumphs, with devils
the hermit. The Dutch translation of the Legenda ing under the bridge are probably compiling a list enacting parodies of Christian practices and
aurea describes how "the fiends came again and of sins supposedly committed by Anthony —their beliefs. These are the fantasies inspired by the
tore him with their teeth and stabbed him with faked evidence for the accusations they make in devil in the saint's fevered mind. They are dis-
their horns and struck him with their claws. They the aerial scene. tinctly medieval fantasies, for in the psychological
cast him up into the air, then they hurled him On the right wing of the triptych is shown theory of the period, dreams suppress the rational
down again, in such manner that they had almost another episode of temptation, when Saint powers that control both the virtus imaginativa
brought him to death/' It is more likely that Bosch Anthony came upon a beautiful woman bathing (the power of imagination) and the images stored

EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 135