Iconology of the Wayfarer Triptych

Dans notre tableau, le fou est un simple élément, un personnage irréel et symbolique chargé d’éclairer le sens de l’œuvre; les autres personnages ne sont pas des fous. Ils sont rassemblés dans une barque, suivant l’idée, commune à l’époque dans le monde entier, de réunir les êtres insociables dans un bateau ; on retrouve même cette idée dans des ivoires chinois, ainsi que le signale Jurgis Baltrusaitis [Baltrusaitis, 1955, 125]. Le même auteur nous montre aussi l’universalité de la figuration de thèmes tels que celui d’arbres où poussent des visages humains, ce qui est le cas dans notre tableau. La tête que l’on aperçoit ici dans le feuillage a été diversement interprétée par les auteurs qui ont voulu y voir soit une tête de mort, soit une chouette (traduction du nom de Bosch en grec). Les personnages de la barque boivent et chantent : nous aurions ici non seulement une satire contre les moines ainsi que Bosch en avait exécutées selon le témoignage des gravures que nous avons citées, mais plutôt une satire dirigée contre l’ivrognerie qu’on leur reprochait. En effet, toutes les gravures, même tardives, illustrant l’ivresse, représentent des tonneaux, des cruches renversées, des joueurs de luth; l’un des buveurs y a souvent un verre sur la tête. Or, tous ces éléments se retrouvent dans notre tableau. (pp.28-29)

Two figures with a jug from Ship of Fools

#22

D’autre part, l’ivresse porte à la colère, ce qui permet d’interpréter le geste du personnage qui frappe le jeune garçon avec une cruche. (p.29)

#23

Il est encore plus facile d’expliquer celui de l’homme qui se trouve à côté du tonneau, et qui se penche pour vomir. En résumé, tous les actes des personnages s’appliquent à notre hypothèse, et les faces rouges ne peuvent que la confirmer. Ainsi ces moines ont perdu le contrôle de leurs sens et de leur âme; le fou, irréel, qui boit, est là comme un signe qui nous rappelle que l’ivresse engendre la folie. Les moines ivres ne pensent pas à leur nourriture : comme des moineaux, ils mangent des cerises. (p.29)

#26

Nous aurions donc ici non pas un sujet fantastique mais un sujet moral : l’ivrognerie menant les moines à leur perte et, plus généralement, le clergé dissolu laissant la barque de l’Eglise aller à la dérive et négligeant le salut des âmes (allusion à l’homme qui s’accroche à la barque; Devoghelaere [Devoghelaere, 1937, 46]). Ce sujet est bien significatif de l’esprit du début de la Réforme. (p. 29)

#40

Bosch and the Narrenschiff: a problem in relationships

In 1962, Hélène Adhémar [Adhémar, 1962, 29] concluded that the Louvre painting is not a Ship of Fools, since only one figure is dressed in fool’s costume; that not only do the singing and drinking figures make a satirical statement against monks, but also the work is a satire against drunkenness itself, of which monks were often accused. The monks lose control of their senses (she notes the redness of the faces), for drunkenness engenders folly; and like sparrows they eat cherries. (p.272)o

Cuttler, 1969

#42

Hanging goose (pig or sheep feet) on the tree mast from Ship of Fools

The mast-tree is understood by her [Adhe_mar, 1962, 29] as a tree of evil, and the young peasant climbing the mast to steal the goose is… (p.272)

Cuttler, 1969

Bosch and the Narrenschiff: a problem in relationships

#43

Hanging pancake from Ship of Fools

… She [Adhe_mar, 1962, 29] thinks, taking advantage of the singer’s drunken obsession that they can satisfy their passions by catching and eating the pancake. (p.272)

Cuttler, 1969

Bosch and the Narrenschiff: a problem in relationships

#96

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

…these ‘children of the moon’ are obsessed by the thought of food and drink… the whole digestive system, the stomach, stomach ailments and nausea were subject to the moon’s control [Agrippe, 1910, 1, 62; de Saint-Marc, 1880, 180-183; Saintyves, 1937,139, 149, 191]. ‘Picatrix’ [Ritter, Plessner & Mayriti, 212] records that ‘children of the moon’ are characterized by their gluttony and drunkenness, and Abraham Ibn Ezra [Abraham, Levy & Cantera, 1939, 201] also notes their gluttony… Of the seven deadly sins, each of which was associated with one of the planets, it was gluttony that fell to the moon [Boll, 1913, 37]. (pp.62-63)

Boczkowska, 1971

#115

Man on a barrel with five skinny men in the waters from An Allegory of Intemperance

…profligate drinking, as manifested by the barrel-rider… (p.31)

Hartau, 2005 (Bosch and the Jews)

Bosch and the Jews

#138

The ship, moreover, was a favourite leit-motiv of didactic literature from the 14th century on. It was Paul Lafond who in 1914 [Lafond, 1914] first pointed out another possible source of this picture: The Narrenschiff… Among the woodcuts illustrating this edition is one showing a boat laden with six drunken fools. It is far from certain, however, that Bosch’s picture was painted after the publication of Brant’s Narrenschiff. (pp. 36-37)

Delevoy, 1960

Bosch

#144

According to her [Adhémar, 1962, 20ff..] this is a satire on drunkards and monks, showing how dissolute clergy let the ship of the Church drift and neglected the salvation of souls. (p. 348)

de Tolnay, 1965

Two men in the waters from Ship of Fools

#177

Zeer zeker traden in de 15de en 16de eeuw in de Nederlanden mannen en vrouwen naakt voor het pubhek op, ook met Vastenavond [Bax, 1949, 116], maar van naakte zwemmers bij het Carnavalsfeest schijnt nergens sprake te zijn. Men kan ook deze figuren, waarvan één een drinkschaal opheft — het was in de 16de eeuw niets ongewoons, dat men de wijn uit een schaal dronk — symbolisch verklaren. Op een schilderij met pretmakers duwen naakte mannen over het water een wijn- of bierton voort [Bosch, ca. 1495–1500]. Nu betekenen de 16de-eeuwse uitdrukkingen „gheerne int natte sijn [Meyling, 1946, 45:344] en „gaeren bijden watere sijn, evenals de 17de-eeuwse gezegden „wel te Waater willen, „wel onder Waater willen, „gaarn met sijn neus in het nat sijn [Stoett, 1932, 10:202, 107] een liefhebber zijn van de drank. Dat „zwemmen ook in onkuise zin voor kan komen, is reeds aangetoond [Bax, 1949, 102]. Bij de naaktheid der dranklustigen kan men denken aan „naakt en „bloot in de betekenis van berooid [Bax, 1949, 116]. (p. 193)

Bax, 1949

Ontcijfering van Jeroen Bosch

#182

Hanging goose (pig or sheep feet) on the tree mast from Ship of Fools

…de aan de mast „gespeten vogel een zinnebeeld van de zwelgzucht [Bax, 1949, 98] (p. 193)

Bax, 1949

Ontcijfering van Jeroen Bosch

#237

Man on a barrel with five skinny men in the waters from An Allegory of Intemperance

A curious Gambrinus, god of beer, comes swimming along on a full barrel and a duck pie tries to catch a fugitive carp. (p. 34)

Benesch, 1957

Hieronymus Bosch and the thinking of the late Middle Ages.

#256

Couple in a pink tent with clothes on shore from An Allegory of Intemperance

…an allegorical satire with happy people celebrating May or Summer [Bax, 1949, 199]… it as an allegory of drunkenness [Werner, 1960, XVIII] and Venturi [Venturi, 1945, 63-64] thinks it may come from the proverb more are drowned in a goblet than in the sea. (p. 208)

Detroit Institute Arts, 1960

Flanders in the fifteenth century: Art and civilization

#460

Man on a barrel with five skinny men in the waters from An Allegory of Intemperance

…on the right, by a pair of lovers in a tent, another motif reminiscent of the Lust scene in the Prado Tabletop [Bosch, ca. 1505-1510, “The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things”]. That they should be engaged in drinking wine is entirely appropriate: Sine Cerere et Liberto friget Venue (Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus freezes); this tag from Terence was well known to the Middle Ages, and that Gluttony and Drunkenness lead to Lust was a lesson that the moralizers never tired of driving home to their audiences. (p. 46)

Gibson, 1973

Man on a barrel with five skinny men in the waters from An Allegory of Intemperance

#508

…on the right, by a pair of lovers in a tent, another motif reminiscent of the Lust scene in the Prado Tabletop [Bosch, ca. 1505-1510, “The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things”]. That they should be engaged in drinking wine is entirely appropriate: Sine Cerere et Liberto friget Venue (Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus freezes); this tag from Terene was well known to the Middle Ages, and that Gluttony and Drunkenness lead to Lust was a lesson that the moralizers never tired of driving home to their audiences. (p. 32)

Bosing, 1987

Hieronymus Bosch c.1450-1516

#566

Old tavern from The Pedlar

The inn which he [the peddler] finds so tempting is obviously a place of sin and corruption. Its swan signboard, its pigeons in the loft, its jug, and its women all show that it is a house of prostitution. It also a place of drunkenness and intoxication. Symbols of drink include the leaking barrel and the man who urinates at the side of the wall. Bosch’s inn can be interpreted as a conventional Christian image of temptation, but it corresponds even more closely with a metaphor in the Manichean-related Hymn of the Pearl. In this poem, the Saviour who has come to rescue the fallen soul goes to stay in a similar inn. Symbolically, this is a temporary dwelling, which represents the earth [Jonas, 1963, 55f.]. Like the tavern/brothel in the painting at Rotterdam, it is a place where corruption and drunkenness are rife. (pp. 163-164)

Harris, 1995

The secret heresy of Hieronymus Bosch

#568

Small bird on tree from The Pedlar

The peddler’s susceptibility to the inebriation at the inn is made plain by several symbols. One of the most obvious is the tit above his head. According to Bax, this bird is a symbol of both drunkenness and wavering weakness [Bax, 1979, 302]. The tit is menaced by a particularly fierce and predatory owl, and does not look as though it has much chance resisting the owl’s advances. This stress on intoxication is particularly relevant to the Cathar meaning of Bosch’s painting, for as we saw earlier, the Gnostics and Manicheans used drunkenness and sleep as metaphors for the soul’s forgetfulness of its true nature. A Manichean call to the soul from one of the ninth century writings found at the Turfan Oasis between 1902 and 1907 illustrates this concept [Jonas, 1963, 83]. (p. 164)

Harris, 1995

The secret heresy of Hieronymus Bosch

#569

Ragged poor man from The Pedlar

The Saviour in the Hymn of the Pearl [Jonas, 1963] resists the drunkenness which he finds in the inn for awhile, but even he is unable to hold out indefinitely. He finally eats and drinks the heavy ‘nourishment’ of the wold , and lapses into a state of sleep. He soon awakens again, but the soul or pearl which he has come to rescue is, like Bosch’s peddler, more helpless and entrapped. This is because the soul is more deeply involved than the spirit with the earth and the physical body. (pp. 164-165)

Harris, 1995

The secret heresy of Hieronymus Bosch

#655

Hieronymus Bosch. Painter and Draughtsman

…with its boatload of merrymakers, surrounded by drunkards and lovers. These are people in the flush of their lives, concerned with neither God nor his commandments. They have given themselves over to eating, drinking, swimming and lovemaking, and their most pressing concern seems to be the pie balanced on the head of one of the swimmers, which they are eager to get onto dry land in one piece. Death still seems a long way away. None of the figures realizes what Sebastian Brant declared in the prologue to his Stultifera Navis (Ship of Fools, 1497), namely that ‘In the ship, we are separated but three fingers’ breadth from death.’… Brant’s Ship of Fools must have been an important inspiration for Bosch’s boatload of carousers. Brant describes his encyclopaedic collection of prints and verses on human folly as a mirror in which everyone can (or ought to) recognize themselves [Brant, 1962, 58] (p. 325)

Ilsink et al., 2016

#663

Hieronymus Bosch. Painter and Draughtsman

A reprint of a sixteenth-century engraving which, according to an inscription, was made after an invention by Bosch, states above the image where a boat like this, full of good-for-nothings, is headed. The boat is named the Blau Schuyte (‘blue barge’), referring to a tradition of worldturned- upside-down festivities and literature; as if that were not enough, inscriptions in Latin, French and Dutch specify that the boat is heading ad perditionem (to perdition) [van Oestvoren, 1413; Pleij, 1983; Bass & Wyckoff, 2015, 158-163; Ilsink, 2013, 250-251].Many viewers of the Ship of Fools will also have made the association, lastly, with the story of the satirical ‘Sint Reynuut’ and his boat [van Leyden, ca. 1520-1530]. Reynuut – a contraction of the words rein uit, meaning wholly empty – is a fictional saint, the patron of all those whose drunkenness leaves them destitute. His shrine is located on the island of the same name, to which he sails on his ship the Quat Regement (Bad Government). The drunkards in Bosch’s painting are certainly devoted to this saint. Sebastian Brant pithily sums up the moral of all these images in his Ship of Fools: ‘Who takes his place on the ship of fools sails laughing and singing to hell.’ [Brant, 1500, fol. p. iiii, cap. 109] (p. 328)

Ilsink et al., 2016

#709

Figure beside the old tavern from The Pedlar

The third figure representation at the inn is a man relieving himself. This figure is not represented inside the building as are the others, but appears outside. It seems to be similar to them also in its meaning and it, too, may refer to what the peddler has done in the activity of his does not seem to be a professional one in the the word but rather a typical vice which is characteristic connected with the profession of a peddler. A figure relieving himself frequently occurs in art in drinking [Philip, 1958, 19:note 39-40, 70:note 147; Lafond, 1914, 86-87; Hollstein, 1949, VI, 22; du Hameel, ca. 1478-1506; Donatello, ca. 1457-1464; Titian, 1518; Michelangelo, 1533]. Surely the peddler had had his share of drinks Many of his attributes point to this, and even the wound the result of a fall during drunkenness. That the peddler also been assumed by Bax [Philip, 1958, 70:note 148; Bax, 1949, 224f.; Hauber, 1916, 75; Panofsky, Giehlow & Saxl, 1923, 27]. It is again in this characterization ard that the figure corresponds to the conjurer [Bosch, ca. 1475], for distinctly characterized as a glutton [Philip, 1958, 34:note 66]. (pp. 69-70)

Philip, 1958

The Peddler by Hieronymus Bosch, a study in detectio

#722

Tree mast with owl from Ship of Fools

In der Ausgestaltung des «Narrenschiff» von Bosch findet sich einigesbei Brant wieder. Zum Beispiel im ersten Titelblatt von 1494 [Dürer, 1494 (Frontispiece of Daß Narrenschyff ad Narragoniam)], sind die Elemente Musik, Wimpel und Zaungäste vergleichbar. Andere Gemeinsamkeiten ergeben sich mit dem Titelblatt der lateinischen Ausgabe Basel 1497 [Brant, 1498 (Frontispiece)]: eine ähnliche Anzahl von Personen, ein trinkender Mönch sowie einige Gesten, wie die erhobenen Arme und das Über-dieReling-Hängen. Die weiblichen Passagiere kann Bosch in einer Pariser «Narrenschiff»-Ausgabe von 1500 gefunden haben, in den «Stultiferae naves» des Humanisten und Verlegers Jodocus Badius [Badius, 1500; Renouard, 1964, 197-213, 2, Nr. C 1, 77f.; Universitätsbibliothek Basel & Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg im Breisgau, 1994, Nr. 110, 206f.]. Hier zeigen die Illustrationen Närrinnen auf Booten. Sie sind Allegorien der «Fünf Sinne», angeleitet von Eva als Ursünderin. Das «Eva»-Boot hat mit Boschs Bild den laubgeschmückten Mast gemeinsam, einen Paradiesbaum mit Schlange. Das «Geschmacks»-Boot («Scapha gustationis stultae») hat mit Boschs Schiff den Wimpel und die ähnliche Bootsform gemeinsam [Scaha gustationis sultae, 1500]. Auch die Gesten der Narren und Närrinnen entsprechen sich, insbesonderewenn man den Holzschnitt spiegelverkehrt betrachtet: Ein närrischer Passagier speist selbstzufrieden, ein anderer, offensichtlich betrunken, legtsich schlafen, eine Närrin verlangt mit erhobener Hand Wein, zwei anderesitzen sich am gedeckten Tisch gegenüber, und in der Mitte erhebt eine Närrin voll Freude ihr Glas. Bosch geht aber über diese Vorlage hinaus und nimmt noch Elemente aus der Maifeier hinzu, die er parodistisch abwandelt. (p. 163)

Hartau, 2002

“Narrenschiffe” um 1500

#723

Der Baum in Boschs Bild führt zu den Maifeiern, zum Brauch, den Frühlingsanfang mit Pflücken von Maizweigen, Musik und Umtrunk zufeiern [Moser, 1961]. Darauf bezieht sich auch Geiler von Kaysersberg in einer Predigt… [Bauer, 1989, 520]. Dieses sogenannte «Maien» ist in flämischen Stundenbüchern, insbesonderein Gent und Brügge, seit den achtziger Jahren des 15. Jahrhunderts häufigdargestellt worden [Hansen, 1984]: Eine feine Gesellschaft sitzt in einem Kahn undläßt sich aufspielen, zuweilen begleitete sie ein Narr [”May, from Hours of Joanna I of Castile”, ca. 1486-1506]. (p. 167)

Hartau, 2002

“Narrenschiffe” um 1500

#780

Ragged poor man from The Pedlar

He has been called, among other things, the Prodigal Son [Glück, 190, 177ff.; de Tolnay, 1966, 369], the Wayfarer [Baldass, 1943, 232], a fool [Combe, 1946, 78], a peddler [Seligmann, 1953, 104; Renger, 1969, 66-67; Tuttle, 1981, 88:note 6; Mollat, 1966, 17; de Tolnay, 1966, 179], Saturn [Pigler, 1950, 132-136], a personification of melancholy [Philip, 1958, 115-132], a man endangered by the sin of sloth [Zupnick, 1981, 1-81], a drunkard [Bax 1949, 222-230; Bax, 1962, 1-14], and Everyman, the Christian pilgrim [Gibson, 1973, 101-106]. (p. 88)

Ragged poor man from The Pedlar

#788

…the Rotterdam tondo represents a second and very different way in which poverty was conceived by the medieval mind: involuntary poverty, the affliction meted out to those who waste their substance in sinful indulgence. indulgence. Throughout medieval literature there are references to poverty as one of the wages of sin. In the Carmina Burana songs, for example, poverty is the typical fate of drunkards and profligates [Hilka, Schumann & Meyer, 1970]. One entire section of the Speculum Laicorum was devoted to drunkenness and its consequences, which included poverty [Owst, 1953, 426-427]. Sebastian Brant opens his chapter “On Gluttony and Feasting” in the Ship of Fools with: “He merits future poverty/ Who always lives in luxury/ And joins the spendthrift’s revelry.” [Brant, 1962, 96] The spendthrift’s ruination in the tavern was a favorite theme of popular literature and art in the sixteenth century, as Konrad Renger has shown in his book Lockerer Gesellschaft [Renger, 1970]. (p. 93)

Old tavern from The Pedlar

#794

In the section depicting Ira in Bosch’s Seven Deadly Sins tabletop [Bosch, ca. 1505-1510], there is a tavern behind the scene of the men fighting. There is a demonic tavern in the center panel of the Vienna Last Judgment [Bosch, ca. 1504-1508; de Tolnay, 1966, 174] with gluttons and drunkards around it and lechers on the roof. There are also taverns, with lechers on the roofs, in the Bruges Last Judgment and in the Hell panel of the Garden of Earthly Delights [Bosch, ca. 1500; Bosch, ca. 1490-1500]. In the Bruges painting sinners who were apparently guilty of excessive drinking are gathered around a barrel in front of the tavern. A similar tavern that is in even worse condition than that of the Rotterdam tondo appears in the background of a scene of revelry in a 16th-century woodcut by Sebald Beham [Beham, 1535]. (p. 93:note 47)

Left leg with bandage from The Pedlar

#797

The fact that the Rotterdam poor man has lost a shoe leads to the same conclusion. Drunkenness and consorting with prostitutes were condemned for being extravagant as well as sinful pastimes in the Middle Ages. They were denounced by moralists who formulated bleak descriptions of the consequences of such unseemly, immoderate activities [Owst, 1953, 425-441; Renger, 1970]. The loss of one’s clothing and particularly one’s shoes as a result of gambling and other forms of prodigality in the taverns was a familiar topos in such literature throughout the Middle Ages [Renger, 1970, 20; Tuttle, 1981, 94:note 60]. Popular texts that elaborated upon the parable of the Prodigal Son were convenient vehicles for the expression of these moralizations [Renger, 1970, 23-70]. One of the most poignant depictions of the Prodigal Son in poverty appears in a series of tondos, today in Basel, that illustrates the various episodes of the parable [Der verlorene Sohn beim Spiel im Freudenhaus, ca. 1520]. The Prodigal Son is shown in wretched poverty, seated before a meager fire. One of his shoes is missing. (p. 94)

Man on a barrel with five skinny men in the waters from An Allegory of Intemperance

#837

At the left edge a fat figure, like the personification of the fleshly holiday, Carnival, rides upon a great, floating barrel presumably containing intoxicating wine or beer. He is dressed like a peasant but also wears a pink cowl like a monk. His absurd funnel hat echoes me quack physician of Bosch’s Extracton of the Stone of Folly [Bosch, ca. 1501-1505] as well as me headgear of me devilish messenger in the left wing of the St. Anthony triptych[Bosch, ca. 1500 (Temptations of St. Anthony)], and has been explained as a symbol of incontinence and merrymaking, like Carnival itself [Bax, 1979, 181-182]. Around the barrel float figures, several of them nude, in search of drink; one of them stretches out a drinking-bowl to catch a stream of alcohol. Below him swims anomer figure with a plate of meat pie upon his head, obscuring his face. (p. 245)

Silver, 2006

Vomitting person from Ship of Fools

#854

At the very stern of the boat, a drunken man vomits into the water. (p. 252)

Silver, 2006