Iconology of the Wayfarer Triptych – Detail

One is reminded of the proverb in the lower center of Pieter Bruegel’s enormous Berlin panel Netherlandish Proverbs [Bruegel, 1559 (Die niederländischen Sprichwörter); Meadow, 1992, 147], of 1560, which shows a similar poor man, like the Rotterdam Pedlar in mismatched footwear, ragged clothing, and bandaged leg… (p.634)

The Pedlar does not have a Jewish physiognomy, but a number of features may allude to Judaism, such as the ostentatiously displayed money pouch (the attribute of Judas), the shoemaker’s awl in the hat (Ahasuerus was originally a cobbler) [Le Juif errant: un témoin du temps, 2001], and perhaps also the trotter, incongruously protruding from his waistcoat. It recalls miniatures showing Jews gnawing on a paw, here it is a lamb’s hoof, slaughtered in the kosher manner for Passah [The eating of the passover lamb, from Historia Scholastica, ca. 1450-1455; Calkins, 1978, 140]. The leg wound is significant since it represents moral reprobation. (pp. 40-41)

The hawker (The prodigal son)

It is a pedlar who, likely enough, had killed the cat and stolen the skin, for I am sorry to say that he was a thief, and is painted at a moment of crime. What is he doing with two hats? The one in his hand has just been stolen from the hatless and otherwise occupied individual in the background. It is, indeed, a fisherman’s hat and has his float and cast pinned on to it. The very long fishing-rod leans up against the Swan Inn in the background. The thief is hurrying away unobserved, for the barmaid is being kissed by a soldier and the old woman in the kitchen is probably poor-sighted. An owl and a dog alone take notice of the crime. Inexplicable by me is the curious fact that Bosch has given to his thief the most refined face he ever painted… A thief-pedlar, however, might have been something less of an aristocrat. (pp. 341-342)

…in the Prodigal Son in the Museum Boymans in Rotterdam (p. 108)

…the peddler walks past a house of prostitution, with a man urinating against the building. The wanderer seems untouched by what the others are doing. Like the men and women in The Garden of Delights [Bosch, ca. 1490-1500, “The Garden of Earthly Delights Triptych”], he has a kind of quiet dignity. He is one of the figures that leaves us in doubt concerning Bosch’s attitude toward his fellow men. Some sinners he treated with nothing but scorn, while others he depicted with sad sympathy. Perhaps this displays Bosch’s feeling that not all people destined for hell are bad. Some victims of circumstance or misunderstanding. (pp. 83-84)

The traveling man in The Wayfarer is passing through a country of sin. (p. 85)

Tout, et même le site, y park d’une profonde desolation. C’est la premiere fois que celui qui étudie le maître pourrait soupconner que dans sa vie il y eut de la souffrance. Mais c’est la seule fois qu’il resta dans les bornes de la vie de douleur, de misères, et de désespoir de I’homme stir notre terre. On ne lui apprendra plus rien, void toute la charge que l’expérience pent accumuler sur les épaules du penseur rustique, au long de la route qui chemine entre le Diable ef Dieu. L’Éiglise, ses dogmes et ses Évangiles, les découvertes de la larve qui ronge le coeur de chaque fleur et qui erapoisonne chaque plaisir, la joie de peindre en tirant de I’inconnu des ombres où il gît, tout cela est en marge de la souffrance de notre pélerin et peut-être de Jerome lui-même. Void sur la route une modeste victime du bien et du mal qui, dans leurs batailles, déséquilibrent I’existence humaine; voici du démoniaque authentique. Dans ses croyances chancelantes, voilées par les sarcasmes et les doutes qui naissent alors dans sa foi, qu’il convenait de situer outre terre pour lui évite les souillures des sophistes et des négateurs, dans le désert qui s’étend dans son esprit, il a vu ce fils des hommes affreusement seul, et qui n’en pent plus appeler à aucune puissance. II marchera, sans compagnon, jusqu’à la mort. Le masque de I’Enfant prodigue, décharné, usé sous quelques mèches de cheveux blancs, porte I’empreinte de tous les déchirements. Bosch, cette fois, essaie de traduire le spirituel dans les apparences plastiques qu’il croit s’accorder avec la douleur irremissible. Dans la contemplation quotidienne, sur les routes cruelles aux portes closes, ce masque se grave dans nos sentiments de pitié. II est incomparable parmi les oeuvres émouvantes que nous a leguees le passé. On peut regretter que Jerome ait altéré, légèrement il est vfai, la position des sourcils et des paupières pour donner au visage I’expression d’une crainte passagère. Mais cette erreur n’empêche pas de lire sur ces traits dépouillés, toutes les craintes les terreurs, les maladies, les famines que cet errant a traversées pendant son pèlerinage douloureux,, ses errances dedestitué sur le globe terrestre. (pp. 4-5)

Si nous voyons là le Fils prodigue, j’imagine qu’après une vie difficile et souvent cruelle de nomade, de paria peut-être, il s’est approche de sa maison natale. Or, ce qu’il volt lui conseille de rebrousser chemin, de reprendre les routes où partout le meme spectacle surgira de, toutes les perspectives : I’amère et quotidien désordre des hommes qui ont perdu l’honneur ou simplement la dignité. (p. 5)

Jacques Combe [Combe, 1946] interprête autrement le sujet du tableau, «L’Enfant prodigue a choisi sa voie et quitte I’auberge délabrée, lieu de ses débauches, dont I’enseigne porte le cygne, image selon Ruysbroek, du jeune homme qui, ne craignant pas Dieu, se laisse mener par ses penchants naturels et mène une vie de plaisirs et de luxures et qui chante avec joie tandis qu’il meurten maint peche grave; le prodigue a choisi et il echappera d cettemort impie tahdis qu’il en est temps encore. Ce n’est plus letheme de I’immanquable chute de, I’humanité aveugle, maiscelui du libre arbitre, attribut.de la nature divine de I’homme. » (p. 5)

L’état râpé des guenilles de VEnfant prodigue semble permettre de conclure que sa route a ete longue et qu’il est totalement denue d’espoir. Un genou se montre dans une vieille déchirure de ses chausses, une jambe nue, le pied dans une savate, porte un pansement blanc au mollet, sa coiffure même, par une crevasse, laisse paraitre une mèche de tristes cheveux. Une grande corbeille ou panier au couvercle de bois ne semble pas fort lourd , si l’on en juge d’après absence de tension de la lanière qui le retient stir le dos du nomade sans provoquer tin seul pli dans sa vieille tunique. Mais Bosch semble insouciant de ses détails et conséquences de la balistique et des résistances. Sur le panier sont attachés une cuiller de hois et une peau de chat, I’une symbole de malchance, dit Tolnay [de Tolnay, 1937], I’autre de débauche. Un chien de garde, comme le dit son collier armé de pointes, paraît avoir poursuivi le chemineau et ne s’être arrêté que devant le gros bâton que celui-ci porte dans sa main droite, beaucoup trop petite comme le sont presque toutes les mains dessinées par Jérôme. Un grand couteau de chasse et tine bourse ( ?) pendent à la ceinture du personnage. Sur sa poitrine, le cordon d’une aiguillette defaite, trace une perpendiculaire claire sur le costume grisâtre ; plus has, passé dans I’ouverture de I’habit, un pied de mouton, aussi cher aux cocagnes flamands que le pied de pore, est un symbole aussi obscur, pour nous, que l’est le fil perpendiculaire qui le surplombe. (pp. 5-6)

Cet homme que l’on prend pour un prodigue ou un débauché, n’est-il pas un misérable savetier ambulant, comme I’indique le poinpon de cordonnier entoure d’un fil de poix, épinglé a son chapeau, seul luxe intact de son appareil vestimentaire ? Dans ce cas, le symbole de la peau de chat demeurerait; la cuiller à pot ferait allusion à ses repas frugatix preparés et pris aux bords des routes. (p. 6)

Telle est cette oeuvre où le maitre a exprimé sa pitié pour la douleur des hommes. (p. 6)

The Pedlar on the exterior shutters suggests a number of parallels with the parable of the Prodigal Son [English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Luke, 15:11-32]: both characters fall into bad ways, squander their money in disreputable establishments and end up improverished and disgraced. Even so, the pedlar is a distinct pictorial type [”Pedlar, from The Luttrell Psalter”, ca. 1325-1340]. Whereas the Prodigal Son, full of remorse, returns to his real father and is joyfully welcomed back into the family, the pedlar can only hope to be welcomed back by his heavenly father. While Bosch alludes to this possibility in his painting, whether it will actually come to pass is by no means certain. (p. 191)

…the protagonist in the centre of the picture walking along a path (p. 191)

When read from left to right they show a chronological progression from life in this world to death and the hereafter (p. 191)

The older and wiser pedlar, representing the viewer, takes the role of the penitent individual facing the end of his life (p. 191)

The pedlar is on the outside in the truest sense: he is outside the Christian fellowship of the central panel and not yet close to the Salvation, or at least not as close as are the guests at the Wedding at Cana. He is, nevertheless, a repentant sinner. (p. 192)

The main figure shown is a pedlar and not, for example, the Prodigal Son, an interpretation often proposed. For all his similarity with the character in the biblical parable, this improvished, itinerant hawker is present as a type in his own right in late medival period, both in literature and in the visual arts [de Bruyn, 2001]. The painting’s message may be read to mean that humankind can reduce and overcome the breadth and variety of sinful paths by turn to God. (p. 255)

…the grey hair worn by the Pedlar… articulates his maturity and embrace for God. (p. 40)

The Vagrant (p. 187)

One of the most outstanding pieces made for the church during Bosch’s lifetime was the baptismal font produced in 1492 by Aert van Tricht of Maastricht (active 1492-1510), a true masterpiece still to be seen in the church [van Tricht, ca. 1492]. Although there is no record of Bosch having provided designs for the font, the supporting figures of the lame and the blind [van Tricht, Lower part detail of baptismal Font at Church of Saint John, ca. 1492] are reminiscent of those in The Pedlar at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam… (p.31)

A good example of Bosch’s taking from sculpture is also to be found in the Haywain: one of the misericords in the choir stalls (again late fifteenth-century) of the Grote Kerk in Breda (a town lying some fifty kilometres from ‘s-Hertogenbosch) represents a pedlar [Brabant, ca. 1460] who looks over his shoulder and at the same time tries to keep away an aggressive dog with a stick, bringing to mind the pedlar in the exterior panels of the Haywain Triptych [Bosch, ca. 1512-1515] and in the Rotterdam tondo. (p. 75)

Vagrants are another common subject in his work, as in The Pedlar [Maroto, 2001, 41-46; Vandenbroeck, 2002, 308-340; Vandenbroeck, 2001, 49-64]… At least two phenomena came into play here. First, there was a strong socio-economic polarization, which resulted in large numbers of unemployed, wanderers and poor; secondly, there was the emergence of a middle class ideology characterized by such required norms as diligence, thrift, sobriety, stability, indoor work, domestic life and social ‘conversation’ (or civility). Consequently, the attacks on those who represented the diametric opposite of these values became more vehement: such people had no place in the estates of the realm and were generally portrayed as poor through their own fault, and lecherous, dim, foolish and antisocial. (p. 97)

Following another tradition, the poor, wandering itinerant, who likewise a social outcast, is also – as presented on the outside of The Haywain [Bosch, ca. 1512-1515] or on the Rotterdam Pedlar – a metaphor for the good, repentant sinner… Bosch was absorbed with the notion of standing ‘out-side society’. He regarded it as an extraordinary position, either for better or for worse. To Bosch, life in the fringes was folly, negative in the case of riffraff but positive in the case of the ‘fools in God’, the hermits he depicted as holy ascetics in the Byzantine tradition – and perhaps there was folly also in the ‘madness’ of the artist, madness sublimated in his fanciful creations. There is an intriguing paradox in Bosch’s view of mankind and society. He condemns outsiders on the one hand but also praises and promotes a ‘sublimated’ marginality under the character of the most austere, ‘extremist’ anchorites from early Christianity, who are seen as self-maintaining (not dependent upon others, unlike beggars), wise, virtuous, ascetic and courageous against the devil’s violence and sexual assaults. The constant presence of threats in Bosch’s worldview goes some way to explaining the contradiction: the moral and spiritual integrity of the individual was liable to attack by his own impulses, rooted in sensuality, by the external world and by supernatural forces of evil. Fear both of material ruin and of spiritual damage was a basic element of bourgeois culture around 1500. The ideal of utilitarian wisdom became an obsession with self-preservation. The self was regarded as an extremely weak entity, constantly obliged to resist and remain firm. Hence the admiration for stern anchorites who were strong, courageous and self-contained. (p. 98-99)

Bosch endorsed the ideology of an urban middle class of craftsmen and small producers, for whom ‘economy’ was also a moral issue. This was certainly not a capitalist vision, although the emphasis on reason and work (expressed inversely by Bosch – the rejection of laziness and wastefulness) and the denial of prodigality and other forms of impulsive behaviour were helping to prepare the way for capitalist discourse. Bosch’s moderate view is manifest in his depictions of the pedlar on the outer wings of The Haywain [Bosch, ca. 1512-1515] and in another, dismembered triptych [Hartau, 2005, 305-338] on the front side of which were The Ship of Fools and The Allegory of Intemperance on the left and The Death of the Miser on the right, and the exterior of which was the Rotterdam Pedlar. (p. 99)

The pedlar is an exceptional figure in Bosch’s oeuvre. Whereas with Bosch almost all poor people are good-for-nothings, he is a good man. He is a poor vagrant (with ragged clothing), but he is repentant: at the end of his life (his hair is white) he looks back, as if to judge his own life path. He sees robbery and revelry, and the punishment of crime (reverse of The Haywain [Bosch, ca. 1512-1515, “The Haywain Triptych”]); in the Rotterdam version, he leaves sinful lust (the brothel) and is about to open a gate towards better times. In his oeuvre, the pedlar is the only good common man, the only secular moral example, witness to another paradox in Bosch: in his view the popular classes consist of sinners and fools, but at the same time his most striking exemplary moral figure is a poor vagabond. (pp. 99-100)

The Philadelphia figure [Bosch, 16th century] does not, however, resemble the portrait drawing now in Arras that has long been identified as Bosch; it resembles more closely The Pedlar in Rotterdam. That said, the grey hair and somewhat weathered, even perhaps bemused, face aligns with the dating of the panel: Bosch would have been in his early fifties around 1500. (p. 212)

On the reverse of the lateral panels [Bosch, ca. 1512-1515] Bosch depicted the subject of the Pilgrimage of Life (the Pedlar), which he had painted in semi-grisaille a few years before on the exterior of the now dismembered triptych of the same name. (p. 232)

The grey-haired old man who was originally on the outer (closed) sides of the triptych’s wings is an itinerant trader; judging from the attributes hanging from the wicker basket on his back, his wares included cat-skins and soup ladles. [Bruegel, 1564]. The bodkin and thread pinned to the hat he holds indicates that he was also active as a cobbler, while the holes in his clothing and his mismatched shoes point to a life of misery. It is possible that he has just squandered his money in the dilapidated house behind him. (p. 294)

A pedlar with a soup ladle and skins hanging from his pack can also be seen in the foreground of Pieter Bruegel the Eider’s Christ carrying the Cross in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna [Bruegel, 1564]. (p. 301, note 10)

We will never know if the pedlar has just left the brothel, is merely walking past it, or is thinking about turning around to go back there. The cloth tied around his leg shows that he has been wounded, most likely bitten by a dog – an animal invariably portrayed in both word and image as the enemy of travelling vendors. A good example of this can be seen in the church of Breda, where a misericord carving dating from around 1460-70 shows a dog biting a pedlar in the leg [Brabant, ca. 1460; Koldeweij, vandenbroeck & Vermet, 2001, 78, note 25; Bax, 1953, 200]. (p. 294)

In the same church, a misericord dating from the same time bears a depiction of a pedlar with a hat in one hand whose pose strongly resembles that of Bosch’s pedlar[Bax, 1953, 200]. (p. 301, note 13)

The most recent interpretations sec the greybeard in the Rotterdam painting as a symbol of man, who, on his path through life, must constantly decide whether or not to give in to the temptations he encounters along the way [Marijnissen, 1987, 410-415; de Bruyn, 2001]. (p. 294)

The Pedlar has sometimes been seen as a portrayal of the Prodigal Son [Glück, 1904; de Tolnay, 1937; Baldass, 1943], but the protagonist’s advanced age rules out this reading. Still, it is quite possible that some contemporaries were prompted by the sight of the brothel and the pigs to recall that parable; perhaps this was even the artist’s intention. After all, in the biblical story the son squanders his inheritance among the harlots and subsequently becomes a swineherd. The question of whether the pedlar eventually repents, as the Prodigal Son did, is left unanswered… For the interpretation of this work, the back of The Haywain Triptych [Bosch, ca. 1512-1515] is of great importance… The question is whether the inner sides of the panels of the present dismembered triptych carried a similar message. (p. 294)

Remarkably, there is also a foot sticking out of the pedlar’s coat on the outer side of the panel, but it does not seem to be a pig’s trotter. (p. 301, note 20)

… the pedlar’s pilgrimage through life… (p. 299)

The figure of the pedlar/vagabond, who appears in both the closed wings of the Hay Wain Triptych in the Prado and in the now octagonal panel in Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, visualizes those allegorical writings in which the whole of human existence is conceived in terms of a pilgrimage. One of the earliest and most influential treatises on the mystical alternatives for actual pilgrimages is the Pèlerinage de la vie humaine by the Cistercian author Guillaume de Deguilleville, which was written in 1330-31 [de Diguleville, ca. 1330-1331]. Several 15th-century versions were published, including a Middle Dutch edition, entitled Boeck van den pelgherym, that appeared in Haarlem in 1486 [Bellaert, 1486]. The book states explicitly that all human beings are pilgrims on their way to the heavenly Jerusalem. Other 15th-century texts emphasize the same point. However, Bosch deliberately avoids presenting his pedlar/vagabond as a stereotypical pilgrim, with all the familiar attributes that might identify him as such. The artist’s ‘pilgrim of life’ is thus able to avoid the negative associations that had become attached in Bosch’s time to itinerant pilgrims, whether or not they were indeed on their way to a particular place of pilgrimage. (pp. 62-63)

In Bosch’s image, the man has packed all his worldly goods into a high wicker basket that he carries on his back, lugging his earthly burden along the path of his life. It has been frequently suggested in the literature that it is a goods basket – a pedlar’s pack- and that the man would therefore have to be a pedlar (as indeed he is called throughout this book). However, we ought to be careful about identifying him too literally; the point is that, like every Christian, he must follow the difficult path of his life, weighed down by the burden of his earthly existence. He lives his life in imitation of Christ, considering Jesus’ example day by day, hour by hour, and bearing his burden. This reading of Bosch’s two, heavily laden vagabonds is reinforced by the title page of an edition of the famous book by Thomas à Kempis, the Dutch edition of his lmitatio Christi, published in Antwerp in 1505 [Kempis, 1505]. The page is decorated with a woodcut showing Christ giving his blessing as Salvator Mundi, which is accompanied by the words ‘No follower of mine shall walk in darkness, says the Lord’ (John 8:12) in both Latin and Middle Dutch. These opening words of the lmitatio Christi epitomize the whole Devotio Moderna movement and are the key to the interpretation of Bosch’s two pedlars. The Christ giving his blessing on the title page looks down at an angle towards the figure of a heavily laden man, who appears in the frame of the woodcut, surrounded by monsters and vines. The resemblance to Bosch’s pedlars is striking, although his basket is filled with the grapes he has picked, the eucharistic symbolism of which is fairly plain. (pp. 63-64)

A panel showing the Flight into Egypt, now in Sternberk, is very interesting in this respect. Attributed to a ‘Brussels Master, circa 1500’ [”Flight into Egypt”, ca. 1500], the Joseph figure shows a remarkable similarity to Hieronymus Bosch’s pedlars, as Paul vandenbroeck already noted in 1981 [Vandenbroeck, 1981]. The Rotterdam Pedlar and, somewhat more freely, the one on the exterior of the Hay Wain in the Prado [Bosch, ca. 1512-1515], belong to a group of rather mannered, laden-down male figures, which appear in manuscripts, prints and paintings from the final quarter of the 15th century, especially in the shape ofJoseph, leading Mary and Jesus to Egypt, but also as pedlars and in the guise of the Prodigal Son. Dürer too included a Joseph looking back in the Flight in his ‘Marienleben’ series, which he created between 1500 and 1505 and which sparked a series of copies and imitations. One of the misericords in the late-Gothic choirstalls of the Grote Kerk in Breda [Brabant, ca. 1460] features a pedlar harassed by a dog similar to the one in Rotterdam. The Breda choirstalls were carved around 1460, immediately after the new vault was installed in the choir. The similarities with Bosch’s pedlar are very striking, suggesting once again that a common source or group of examples was in circulation. (p. 78)

There is only one instance in which Bosch shows an ordinary person ‘walking the straight path’ as the principal theme of a painting. There are two autograph versions of the Pedlar, one on the outside of the Hay Wain Triptych [Bosch, ca. 1512-1515], the other on the Rotterdam panel… The other Pedlar in Rotterdam is similar to the one in the Hay Wain in many respects, although his gaze is sterner and his hair is greying rather than white already. He has just passed a rundown brothel and is about to open a gate that bars his way. A magpie sits on the lowest bar of the gate, which stands next to a tree, with an owl perching on a bare branch. The bird stares at a great titmouse in the branches below. (pp. 183-184)

Bosch represented the Prodigal Son in a small tondo… A lean fellow is hastily yet wearily making towards the right, casting a furtive glance backwards. Beset by vicissitudes, burdened with his belongings, in tatterdemalion clothes, he is shaking the dust from his feet. In the left middleground stands the suspect house whence he has been expelled. (p. 56)

The Prodigal Son (pl. 94)

The Prodigal Son, for example, is now often called The Vagabond [Philip, 1958, pp.1-81]… Brand Philip’s study of The Prodigal Son, already mentioned, attacks the traditional chronology of Bosch’s work. She regards this painting, generally accepted as a late work, as possibly depicting one of the four temperaments, one of four medallions on the exterior of a lost triptych. (p. 99)

De Verloren Zoon (p. 81)

Het schilderij van Bosch wordt geacht het oogenblik voor te stellen, waarop de zondaar, tot inkeer gekomen, het huis, dat het tooneel zijner zonde geweest is, verlaat. Met zijn mand op den rug uitgedoscht als marskramer [Holbein, ca. 1523 – 1525; van Leyden, ca. 1520-1530], draagt hij allerlei kenteekenen, die aan zijn verblijf in het huis der vreugden herinneren. (p. 78)

Wie eenigszins thuis is in onze middeleeuwsche literatuur, wordt bij het zien van het hondje, dat den man aanblaft, en van den stok, waarmede deze zich in het secure neemt, herinnerd aan de regels, waarin Willem van Hildegaersberch het vagebondenleven schildert [Bisschop & Verwijs, 1870, 172] (pp. 82-83)

Stelt het schilderij nu werkelijk den Verloren Zoon voor? Men heeft het betwijfeld en zelfs radicaal ontkend [Sudeck, 1931, 18; Vermeylen, 1939, 49]. Het grijze haar vooral zou niet passen en de andere détails, ook de zwijnen, kunnen wel als simpele milieuschildering opgevat worden… Maar de verbeelding is meer dan een simpele weergave van den parabel; zij legt den nadruk op het algemeen-menschelijke van het thema… Dat de schilder het menschelijke door het persoonlijke weergegeven heeft, staat voor mij vast. Wie, de middaghoogte des levens overschreden „en tot zichzelven gekomen zijnde” [Luke, 15:17], ontkomt aan stemmingen als van den Verloren Zoon? Al proef ik het subjectieve in het schilderij, toch zou ik niet zoo ver willen gaan als sommigen, die er een zelfportret van Bosch in zien [de Tolnay, 1937, 46ff.; Hannema, 1931, 10; Romein & Romein, 1938, 81; Lafond, 1914, 24]. Men heeft zelfs in den ronden vorm van het schilderij een spiegel meenen te herkennen, „miroir de la r alit ”, die den mensch het ware en goede moet openbaren [English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Luke, 15:17; de Tolnay, 1937, 46ff]. Dat zou wel passen bij mijn opvatting van de voorstelling, want, naar Huizinga’s woord, „er was geen groote waarheid, die de middeleeuwsche geest stelliger wist, dan die van het woord aan de Corinthen: „Videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate, tune autem facie ad faciem” [Huizinga, 1919, 337; English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Corinthians. 13:12]. Wie het algemeenmenschelijke, tegelijk het diepst-eigene, wilde verbeelden, kan zeker naar den spiegelvorm gegrepen hebben. Doch ook de achterzijde van Bosch’ Johannes op Patmos te Berlijn [Bosch, ca. 1500 (Johannes auf Patmos)] en zijn Doornenkroning in het Escuriaal [Bosch, ca. 1510] zijn rond! Het lijkt mij gevaarlijk, schoon verleidelijk, in den ronden vorm een spiegel te willen zien en daaraan geestelijke bedoelingen te verbinden. Liever wil ik de verklaring van Glück aanvaarden, die het ronde proc d waarschijnlijk ontleend acht aan ontwerpen voor glasschilderingen [Glück, 1933, 11; Romein & Romein, 1938, 93]; dus zou het hoogst nuchter een kwestie van techniek zijn, overgehouden uit het vroeger beoefende glazeniersvak. Doch dat vermindert volstrekt niet de subjectieve visie van den kunstenaar op den Verloren Zoon. (pp. 84-85)

De verloren zoon (p. 46)

De verloren zoon, even voornaam eenvoudig van voorstelling als inde sobere schildering, is geen uiting der visionnaire verbeelding van een gehallucineerde, gelijk men Bosch wel heeft genoemd. Hier geen spoor van bitteren lust in het onwezenlijke of infernaal-afschrikwekkende, noch van spot met den medemensch, die klein en vreesachtig zich tracht te verbergen voor het arglistige, giftige kwaad, dat hem van alle zijden belaagt… Men kon er een breedvoerige bespiegeling over houden, of Jheronymus Bosch hier geen ander oogmerk heeft gehad dan een bijbelsch tafereel: den verloren zoon, verjaagd van voor een vervallen taveerne, herinnering aan vroeger gevierde orgi n, in beeld te brengen. De eigenaardige vermenging van mystieke gewaarwording met objectieve aanschouwing, die aan het ontstaan van de vele „diableries moet zijn voorafgegaan, heeft hier ontbroken. Mist men echter ook die van verzinnebeelding met realistische opvatting? Is niet aannemelijk, dat de schilder niet alleen een episode uit de bekende gelijkenis heeft willen we rgeven, doch breeder van conceptie, de bedoeling heeft gehad de verlatenheid of verworpenheid uitte beelden? Om een antwoord op de vraag te vinden, kon men zich er rekenschap van geven dat die arme daar op een schoen en een slof gaat, met den hoed inde hand, wat het gissen naar hetgeen men den zin van de schildering zou kunnen noemen, een ruimer gebied opent dan inde gelijkenis ligt omsloten. Daar tegenover herinneren accessoires als een trog met zwijnen en een kalf toch wel onmiddellijk aan die parabel (pp. 48-49)