Iconology of the Wayfarer Triptych – Detail

…the torn trouser knee and the roughly bandaged shin show that at his last stop this vagabond must have taken a sudden tumble down the stairs (p. 259)

But an even more incisive mark of the Prodigal’s inner turnaround is his gait: a loose-kneed falling forward, a shuffle in which the soles of the feet barely leave the ground, a limp sagging at the knees as though an insupportable burden were crushing him as he staggers on his way. This expressive movement, characteristic of Bosch, has the effect of a definition, which, like Seneca’s “errare humanum est” or the Demosthenian “it is only the gods who never err,” sees human journeying as endless stumbling; God’s steadfastness alone offers a firm footing. We recall the words of the Psalmist: “My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O Lord, held me up” [English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Psalm, 94:18]. Does not the puppetlike movement of the Prodigal’s limbs suggest that he is being drawn along by a higher hand? [Fraenger, 1999, 431, note 104; Baldass, 1943, 232; Bax, 1948] (p. 259)