Iconology of the Wayfarer Triptych

Le Muse_e national du Louvre, Paris

Pour Combe [Combe, 1946, 20-21], le tableau est une illustration du thème pascalien de la poursuite par l’homme du bonheur illusoire, cherché dans le divertissement et qui l’amène à oublier le caractère précaire de sa condition et l’empêche d’envisager sa fin. (p.24)

Adhe_mar, 1962

#56

Knightly jousting objects, draped cloth with winged figure from Death and the Miser

The Narrenschiff beggar before the low wall has been transformed by Bosch into a veiled disparagement of knights and chivalry, suggested by the helmet, lance, gauntlet, sword, and shield. The objects seem to be related visually and conceptually to the nearby draped cloth and the little evil monkish figure behind it. There is a vague allusion to jousting and tournaments, a very popular form of entertainment in the late medieval period. Naturally tournaments were castigated in the literature, as in the sermons of Jacques de Vitay and in other writings [Bloomfield, 1952, 129, 172]. (p.275)

Cuttler, 1969

Bosch and the Narrenschiff: a problem in relationships

#85

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

Enklaar [Enklaar, 1956, 55f] has suggested that Bosch’s painting was inspired by Jacob van Oestvoren’s poem of 1413, De Blauwe Schuit (‘The Blue Boat’), which was composed in the form of a charter for a ‘Blue Boat’ Society, in which people of various social classes gathered together for the purpose of common recreation consisting of the organization of theatrical performances, music-making and dancing [Enklaar, 1956, 44-47] . In support of this hypothesis, Enklaar cites an engraving from the workshop of Hieronymus Cock, which was in all probability executed after a missing work by Bosch [Enklaar, 1956, 84f; van der Heyden, 1559] . It depicts a boat with the inscription, Blauwe Schuit and figures of music-makers like those in The Ship of Fools. (p.47)

Boczkowska, 1971

#140

The boat is being driven about aimlessly; forgetting duty, the steersman has abandoned his helm to take part in the passengers’ game around the cake. The picture’s basic theme is probably inspired by the last chapter but one of Sebastian Brant’s Ship of Fools… [Brant, 1854, 104; de Tolnay, 1965, 26, Demonts, 1919, 6ff] (p. 26)

de Tolnay, 1965

#146

It illustrates, long before Pascal, the Pascalian theme of man’s pursuit of illusory happiness, seeking it in entertainment which makes him forget the precariousness of his condition and diverts his mind from the contemplation of his end, an idea familiar to Bosch and his contemporaries. It underlies the Praise of Folly by Erasmus [Erasmus, 1913]. The ardor with which men run after happiness is proportionate to their degree of folly. (p. 24)

Combe, 1957

Jérome Bosch

#152

Ook de andere vier zingen, maar schijnen tevens op het punt te staan om — misschien als het lied afgelopen is — in een soort bolvormig gebak te happen [Enklaar, 1937, 16; Demonts, 1919, 3], dat aan een lang touw bungelt. Het is wellicht een „bol, o.m. een Vastenavondlekkernij [Bax, 1949, 116]. We hebben hier te doen met een spel, dat op ons koekhappen gelijkt [Bax, 1949, 142]. (p. 189)

#153

Een homp brood of kaas, zoals Enklaar [Enklaar, 1937, 16] het noemt, mag men er niet in zien. Demonts [Demonts, 1919, 3] houdt het voor een „moppe (cette pâtisserie populaire, ronde, plate et sèche) en meent, dat de cactus op Bruegels Luilekkerland uit dezelfde koeken samengesteld is [Bruegel, 1567]. Deze zijn echter plat. (p. 195, note 14)

#154

Het aan een touw opgehangen voorwerp, waarnaar enige inzittenden van Jeroens Schuit met Pretmakers hun monden opensperren, is er misschien ook een, evenals het broodje, dat aan een stok boven het hoofd van een door Huys geschilderde oude vrouw bungelt [Follower of Pieter Huys, ca. 1560]. Zulke bollen liggen aan de voeten van een door P. Aertsen gepenseelde boer, die in een lege drinkkan kijkt, bij een worst op de grond [Aertsen, 1556; Bergmans, 1936, 154]. Kleinere bakt een vrouw op Bruegels Strijd tussen de Vasten en de Vastenavond en draagt een Vastenavondvierder aldaar op een tafel [Bruegel, 1559 (The Fight between Carnival and Lent)] . In een 16de-eeuws referein scheldt men monniken uit voor „keyaerts metten gheschoren cranse en voor „witte bollen, welke laatste uitdrukking wel een zinspeling zal zijn op hun kale kruin én op de broodjes [Heremans, 1877, 89]. Deze voorbeelden maken het aannemelijk, dat Bosch „rondjes een symbool zijn van het vele eten, o.a. met de Vastenavond. (p. 166)

#155

…willen happen naar een bolvormig broodje dat aan een touw hangt, terwijl op het zo straks genoemde, aan Huys [Follower of Pieter Huys, ca. 1560, “Grotesque Duel on the Ice”] toegeschreven schilderij van symbohsche Vastenavondpret een snoer met een rond broodje aan een stok hangt. Het snoer met het ronde, eetbare voorwerp werd m.i. gebruikt bij een spel dat op ons koekhappen gelijkt. (p. 142)

#229

The Van Eycks and their followers

A Boating Party (p. 510)

Conway, 1921

#267

Quatre d’entre ces désaxés ouvrent la bouche. Est-ce pour psalmadier un chant funebre? Est-ce pour happer des dents une bouchée de la brioche ou tarte qu’un fil, attache au maigre cordage, suspend entre leurs masques? Ceux-ci sont severes comme si leur idde fixe dtait de se croire grand empereur ,ou fameux troubadour. L’un des quatre maniaques, peut-être , conscient du spectacle d’idiotie qu’il nous donne, ferme les paupieres. Toutefois, il n’est pas rare que Jerome (pour éviter de peindre des yeux ?) abaisse sans motif les paupières de quelqa’un de ses personnages. (p. 2)

de Boschère, 1947

Jérôme Bosch

#271

De chaque côté d’une planche, placée en travers de la barque, sont assis, se faisant face, deux de nos quatre figures, un homme et une femme desserrent legerement les levres pour chanter, braire ou happer une bouchee de la tarte suspendue h son fil. La femme, peut-etre une religieuse, inspirée par le chant ou par la gourmandise, ou par les deux, montre en tout cas plus d’ardeur que le pâle franciscain vêtu de gris qui lui fait face, de I’autre côté de la planche. Ici sont disposes, non sans danger, un gobelet et une assiette de groseilles à maquereaux ou groseilles vertes et rouges. La religieuse s’accompagne d’une guitare, le franciscain semble chanter d’une voix aigre, oh pent supposer que seul un mince filet de voix peut s’échapper de cette momie au nex rouge, on peut aussi imaginer que Bosch, en concevant cet individu, lui voulut une gravité grotesque de variiteux lunatique. (p. 2-3)

de Boschère, 1947

Jérôme Bosch

#292

…a Franciscan friar and a nun of the Order of the Poor Clares, the latter playing a lute, are seated in the middle of the boat nearest to the viewer (p. 191)

Fischer, 2016

Jheronimus Bosch

#293

Stick with upturned jug from Ship of Fools

The combination is particularly piquant since the tonsured friar, as a priest, is strictly speaking in charge of the nun’s spiritual welfare and should be guiding her along the right, that is to say, religious, path. Both appear to be singing, and a loaf of bread hangs down from above, within reach of their mouths. (p. 191)

Fischer, 2016

Jheronimus Bosch

#306

Here, too, a jug is hooked upside down over a branch. The association of drinking, eating, music-making and lust is one we have already encountered in the Garden of Earthly Delights [Bosch, ca. 1490-1500]. Here, as there, flourishing nature becomes a symbol of the uncurbed human instincts that seek only sensual pleasure. (p. 192)

Fischer, 2016

Jheronimus Bosch

#349

The boat holds a group of merrymakers, who are happily joined by a monk and a nun (or beguine). Their open mouths and the lute suggest that they are singing. The barrel at the front of the boat indicates a plentiful supply of drink; a man reaches up with his knife to a roast fowl that is tied to the mast. The round thing hanging on a long rope is difficult to identify; it might be a (pan)cake or a loaf of bread. An owl sits in the branch placed on top of the mast. A much larger branch in the boat serves as a seat for a fool. (p. 298)

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

#351

In the upper part of the New Haven panel, a man is seated on a Floating barrel, which is being pushed along by several men. The dish on a swimmer’s head holds a meat pie decorated wiith a bird’s head. The bathers have left their clothes on the shore. These figures demonstrate an interest not only in singing, eating and drinking but also in love, as is evident from the couple in the tent, seated snugly at the table. (p. 298)

#355

Two traditions are of importance in interpreting the merrymakers in the boat in particular. First of all, the branches, as well as the cherries on the plank that serves as a makeshift table, clearly show that these people have set out on a pleasure trip. Especially in the spring, highborn youngsters amused themselves by flirting and making music while sailing around in boats decorated with foliage. This happened in real life, but it was also portrayed in numerous book of hours as illustrations of the month of May. Those depictions, however, invariably show elegantly dressed boys and girls, whose polished manners cannot be compared with the debauched doings of Bosch’s figures. Merrymaking monks and nuns never appear in such scenes [Bax, 1949, 194; de Bruyn, 2001, 80-83; Silver, 2006, 243-252; Ilsink et al., 2016, 212] yet they are part of the other tradition from which this painting seems to derive. Revellers in boats or barges who flout the norms and values of society are known from countless sixteenth-century poems, prints and religious processions. Again and again, social norms were ridiculed by displays of dissolute behaviour, by showing how not to do it, by acting out the topsy-turvy world. For those receptive to the message, it was immediately clear where such behaviour would finally lead – to perdition [Pleij, 1979; Lammertse & van der Coelen, 2015, 62]. (p. 298)

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

#362

#380

The rejection of enjoyment and lust is expressed in Bosch’s work in themes like the Allegory of Gluttony (and Lechery) and the Ship of Fools (originally together on one panel); Shrove Tuesday, Singers in an Egg [Follower of Jheronimus Bosch, ca. 1561], Mock Tournament on the Ice [Follower of Pieter Huys, ca. 1560] and Tavern Scene – all of which only survive in the form of copies; the drawings of the Tree-Man [Bosch, ca. 1505] and the Witches [Bosch, 15th century] (who may also represent people celebrating Shrove Tuesday); and the Blue Ship [van der Heyden, 1559] and Merrymakers Sailing in a Mussel Shell [van der Heyden, 1562], which survive in the form of prints… They tell us how human beings fall into such misbehaviour when they fail to resist the blandishments of their senses [Badius, 1502; Follower of Jheronimus Bosch, ca. 1555-1575]. (p. 123ff)

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#381

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

The rejection of enjoyment and lust is expressed in Bosch’s work in themes like the Allegory of Gluttony (and Lechery) and the Ship of Fools (originally together on one panel); Shrove Tuesday, Singers in an Egg [Follower of Jheronimus Bosch, ca. 1561, “Concert in the egg”], Mock Tournament on the Ice [Follower of Pieter Huys, ca. 1560, “Grotesque Duel on the Ice”] and Tavern Scene – all of which only survive in the form of copies; the drawings of the Tree-Man [Bosch, ca. 1505, “The Tree man”] and the Witches [Bosch, 15th century, “Sorcières et monstres (Witches and monsters)”] (who may also represent people celebrating Shrove Tuesday); and the Blue Ship [van der Heyden, 1559, “Die Blau Schuyte (Ship of Fools)”] and Merrymakers Sailing in a Mussel Shell [van der Heyden, 1562, “Merrymakers in a mussel shell”], which survive in the form of prints… They tell us how human beings fall into such misbehaviour when they fail to resist the blandishments of their senses [Badius, 1502; Follower of Jheronimus Bosch, ca. 1555-1575, “Shrovetide and Lent”]. (p. 123ff)

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#390

… the pendant of Death and the Usurer as a panel that was sawn in two – the Ship of Fools and the Allegory of Gluttony. Together, the two scenes must have constituted a satire of licentious merrymakers, in which Bosch attacked the opposite of avarice – the intoxication of prodigality. (p. 139)

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#391

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

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#411

De ommegang met het wagenschip

Het gezelschap ligt aan onder een grooteren boom, wellicht onder den ouden heiligen boom, waarvan nog het Antwerps Liedboek zingt: den haeselaer es op gherecht, tgaet te vastelavont waert [Antwerper Liedboek, 1544], (p. 29).

de Haas, 1942

#424

Hat on left hand from The Pedlar

Op het schilderij der rederijkers door Jan Steen [Steen, ca. 1670] ziet men een pijp, op de Braspartij van Frans Hals [Hals, ca. 1616-1617] in het Metropolitan Museum te New-York een pijp en een pollepel door hoeden en mutsen gestoken, terwijl het ongunstige van den fluitspeler op het herbergtafereel van Willem Buytenwech [Buytewech, ca. 1591-1624] in het Museum Bredius te ’s-Gravenhage geaccentueerd wordt door de speelkaart, die de man aan zijn muts bevestigd heeft. [Glück, 1933, 12] (p. 80, note 8)

Enklaar, 1940

Uit Uilenspiegel’s kring

#444

It shows a monk and two nuns or beguines carousing with a group of peasants in a boat. The oddly constructed boat carries a tree in full leaf for a mast, while a broken branch serves as a rudder. A fool is seated in the rigging on the right. (p. 40-41)

Gibson, 1973

#448

The monk and one of the nuns are singing lustily, the latter accompanying herself on a lute; they resemble the amorous couples depicted in medieval love gardens, who make music as a prelude to making love. (p. 41)

Gibson, 1973

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

#457

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#495

Hieronymus Bosch c.1450-1516

Bosing, 1987

#524

Certainly the monk and nun make up the central focus of an overtly satirical picture. It remains unclear if they are singing to each other or, with others of their silly company, are bobbing at the cake dangling between them. Whichever it may be, nothing here is to be taken as realistica. Everything becomes a sign alluding to something else: the swimmers, the fool on the mast, the man losing his dinner overboard, the one who crawls about in the bottom of the boat with a huge jug on a cord and over whom a woman is leaning-none of them can be taken as literal and real. (p. 66)

Linfert, 1989

#530

That even this highly eccentric-seeming Ship of Fools has to do with some activity connected with either the deadly sins or the seasons is suggested by an exploration of the new iconography of the Months introduced at the end of the fourteenth century. As Pächt shows, depictions of the activities of each month had been done mostly in the form of wall paintings until the fifteenth century, when they began to appear in manuscript miniatures [Pächt, 1948]. There are Books of Hours from the time when Bosch began his career in which, as Cuttler found, the month of May was generally illustrated with a boating party [Cuttler, 1969]. From the same period there are also pictures of groups of monks in boats, and since the devils always busy themselves with such lusty companies, these would appear to be meant as disreputable. It is a safe assumption that, in Bosch’s time, such an association of boat trips with sinful monks was widespread. Nevertheless much remains to be explained here, especially since in another source one finds a monk and nun cooperating (or worse) in some blasphemous action. In which case the cake suspended from above would be the host and the board between the two an altar table set with chalice and paten. Yet there are others in the picture, and their only message seems to be that “where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise.” (p. 66)

Linfert, 1989

#534

The complete paintings of Bosch

The motif of the ship of the pleasure-seekers was a very familiar one in the Flanders of the fifteenth century [Enklaar, 1933; Bax, 1949]: the blue boat, laden with a libertine party, was celebrated as early as 1413 in Jacob van Oestvoren’s poem De Blauwe Scuut [van Oestvoren, 1413]; it used to appear in the carnival parades of Brabant. and gave its name to a brotherhood found in several Dutch towns, devoted to feasting and merrymaking [Enklaar, 1933]. But Bosch’s boat is not painted blue. Moreover, Sebastian Brant’s satirical poem Narrenschiff was published in German and in Latin in 1494 [Brant, 1944; Brant, 1962]; the 1498 edition contains many engravings, in no way related. however, to Bosch’s painting, as claimed by Demonts and Combe [Demonts, 1919; Combe, 1946]; the highest expression of the theme is found in Erasmus Praise of Folly [Erasmus, 1913]. The connection with Brant’s work (Demonts), accepted at one point also by Tolnay [de Tolnay, 1937], would provide a date post quem, but the types of the friar, of the nun and of other characters appear to have been inspired by Oestvoren’s poem (Enklaar). (pp. 92-93)

Cinotti, 1966

#541

The complete paintings of Bosch

Bosch’s other versions of the theme, now lost: among them the engravings by P. van der Heyden published by Cock at Antwerp, one in 1559 [van der Heyden, 1559], with the inscription die blau Schuyte, the other in 1562 [van der Heyden, 1562], wherein the boat is an open mollusc valve, an obvious erotic reference; both show the score of a song being sung, in accordance with an inspiration traceable to The Concert [Follower of Jheronimus Bosch, ca. 1561], where the egg also conveys an erotic meaning. (p. 93)

Cinotti, 1966

#645

Lammertse & van der Coelen, 2015

What is funny at one point in time may not be regarded as remotely amusing at another. When Jheronimus Bosch painted a monk having fun with a nun in The Ship of Fools, most viewers would have seen the joke. Idling, merrymaking friars and lovesick pastors were among the stock characters in fiftheenth-century anecdotes, poems and farces. (p. 49)

De ontdekking an het dagelijks leven: Van Bosch tot Bruegell

#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

#660

Tree mast with owl from Ship of Fools

All these goings-on are observed by an owl from a branch lashed to the mast [Marijnissen, 1987, 314]. The branch in the mast and the one in the boat on which the jester is sitting evoke a phenomenon that we do not find in Sebastian Brant’s Ship of Fools, but which does appear repeatedly in contemporary illustrations of calendars in Books of Hours. ‘May boats’, as they are known, carry courting couples who sing and play music, enjoy the beginning of spring and make themselves giddy with amorous thoughts [Oosterman, 2001]. There is a fine example in the Book of Hours that Joanna of Castile, wife of Duke Philip the Fair, commissioned from a Bruges workshop between 1486 and 1506. The prayers set out in the manuscript are preceded by a calendar of saints’ days and other church festivities. The months of the year are accompanied by illustrations of the activities associated with the relevant season. The month of May is decorated with a miniature showing three people making music in a little boat decorated with budding branches. The boat flies a pennant from its bow, while a fool perches on the stern playing the bagpipes. The illustration on the opposite page shows a kneeling man making a proposal to a young lady, while the rest of the miniature is suggestively devoted to hunting [”May, from Hours of Joanna I of Castile”, ca. 1486-1506] (pp.326-328)

Ilsink et al., 2016

Hieronymus Bosch. Painter and Draughtsman

#661

Hieronymus Bosch. Painter and Draughtsman

The illustrations show that the link between music, love, folly, spring and May boats was a relatively common one. The boat decorated with branches and the musicians we find in Bosch’s Ship of Fools mean we need to take this aspect into account when interpreting the painting, which also shows someone playing the lute. In the May boat image, the lute no doubt represents the harmony of the music itself and between the lady who plays the instrument and her lover. The nun and the monk in the Ship of Fools also sing along to the strains of the lute – less mellifluously, we imagine – but here the allusion can only be to indecency. (p. 328)

Ilsink et al., 2016

#670

The Ship of Fools: Hieronymus Bosch in Response to Sebastian Brant

…in the case of Bosch’s singing group, the major depicted details are drawn primarily from Brant’s woodcuts. This detail, making up the center of the painting, portrays a group of singers: mouths open, instruments poised, gazes falling on the pancake that hangs between them. Amongst this group, the two identifiable characters are the monk and nun sitting in the front—each recognizable by their traditional garments. This formulation of characters, of a group singing in a circular formation, is taken directly from the composition of the woodcut that accompanies Brant’s chapter “Of Serenading at Night” [Dürer, 1494 (Of Serenading at Night)]… Bosch’s group serenades in complete ignorance to their surroundings and Bosch’s furthest left singer bears the very same guitar… Bosch’s portrayal of the singers can be condensed to a primary compositional reference to a woodcut from The Ship of Fools, and only a singular line of text [Brant, 2011, 206, 207]. (p. 33)

Parker, 2020

#722

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)

Tree mast with owl from Ship of Fools

#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)

Tree mast with owl from Ship of Fools

#724

Bosch parodiert in seinem «Narrenschiff» diese Maibräuche durch den Maibaummit der Gans, den herabhängenden Karnevalskuchen («mop»), das Weinfaßund den umgedrehten Krug. (p. 167)

#725

Bosch parodiert in seinem «Narrenschiff» diese Maibräuche durch den Maibaummit der Gans, den herabhängenden Karnevalskuchen («mop»), das Weinfaßund den umgedrehten Krug. (p. 167)

Barrel hanging on boat from Ship of Fools

#726

Bosch parodiert in seinem «Narrenschiff» diese Maibräuche durch den Maibaummit der Gans, den herabhängenden Karnevalskuchen («mop»), das Weinfaßund den umgedrehten Krug. (p. 167)

Stick with upturned jug from Ship of Fools

#727

Bosch parodiert in seinem «Narrenschiff» diese Maibräuche durch den Maibaummit der Gans, den herabhängenden Karnevalskuchen («mop»), das Weinfaßund den umgedrehten Krug. (p. 167)

#812

Certainly images of courtly love bowers figure prominently within calendar page illustrations, particularly for the lusty spring months of April and May. Half a century after Bosch, Pieter Bruegel’s drawing design for a print of Spring [Bruegel, 1565 (Der Frühling)] still features not only the preparation of a formal garden under a matron’s careful supervision in the foreground but also, at its vanishing point, a love bower, where feasting, drinking, and music as well as boating provide conducive conditions for lovemaking. [Silver, 2006, 400:note 37; van der Heyden, 1570; Bening, ca. 1515; Orenstein, 2001, 236-238: no. 105-106; Wieck, 1988, 45-54]… Once more, it should be recalled that these are precisely the kinds of activities condemned elsewhere by Bosch as the sin of luxuria in his Prado table tabletop [Bosch, ca. 1505-1510] and in his wing panel of the Ship of Fools… Indeed, such activities mark gardens of love (sometimes with added ascetic figures to be discovered) in later Flemish and Dutch painting, from Pieter Pourbus, Allegory of True Love [Pourbus, c. 1547] to a nascent seventeenth-century genre of “merry companies,’ where well-dressed young aristocrats feast and flirt in outdoor garden settings [Silver, 2006, 400:note 38; Huvenne, 1979; Nevitt, 2003, 21-98; de Bruyn, 1604; de Bruyn, 1601; Hellerstedt, 1986, 42-44, no. 16; Renger, 1976, 190-203; Nichols, 1992, 32-42]. (pp. 52-53)

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

#813

Certainly images of courtly love bowers figure prominently within calendar page illustrations, particularly for the lusty spring months of April and May. Half a century after Bosch, Pieter Bruegel’s drawing design for a print of Spring [Bruegel, 1565 (Der Frühling)] still features not only the preparation of a formal garden under a matron’s careful supervision in the foreground but also, at its vanishing point, a love bower, where feasting, drinking, and music as well as boating provide conducive conditions for lovemaking. [Silver, 2006, 400:note 37; van der Heyden, 1570; Bening, ca. 1515; Orenstein, 2001, 236-238: no. 105-106; Wieck, 1988, 45-54]… Once more, it should be recalled that these are precisely the kinds of activities condemned elsewhere by Bosch as the sin of luxuria in his Prado table tabletop [Bosch, ca. 1505-1510] and in his wing panel of… an Allegory of Gluttony. Indeed, such activities mark gardens of love (sometimes with added ascetic figures to be discovered) in later Flemish and Dutch painting, from Pieter Pourbus, Allegory of True Love [Pourbus, c. 1547] to a nascent seventeenth-century genre of “merry companies,’ where well-dressed young aristocrats feast and flirt in outdoor garden settings [Silver, 2006, 400:note 38; Huvenne, 1979; Nevitt, 2003, 21-98; de Bruyn, 1604; de Bruyn, 1601; Hellerstedt, 1986, 42-44, no. 16; Renger, 1976, 190-203; Nichols, 1992, 32-42]. (pp. 52-53)

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

#814

Certainly images of courtly love bowers figure prominently within calendar page illustrations, particularly for the lusty spring months of April and May. Half a century after Bosch, Pieter Bruegel’s drawing design for a print of Spring [Bruegel, 1565 (Der Frühling)] still features not only the preparation of a formal garden under a matron’s careful supervision in the foreground but also, at its vanishing point, a love bower, where feasting, drinking, and music as well as boating provide conducive conditions for lovemaking. [Silver, 2006, 400:note 37; van der Heyden, 1570; Bening, ca. 1515; Orenstein, 2001, 236-238: no. 105-106; Wieck, 1988, 45-54]… Once more, it should be recalled that these are precisely the kinds of activities condemned elsewhere by Bosch as the sin of luxuria in his Prado table tabletop [Bosch, ca. 1505-1510] and in his wing panel of… an Allegory of Gluttony. Indeed, such activities mark gardens of love (sometimes with added ascetic figures to be discovered) in later Flemish and Dutch painting, from Pieter Pourbus, Allegory of True Love [Pourbus, c. 1547] to a nascent seventeenth-century genre of “merry companies,’ where well-dressed young aristocrats feast and flirt in outdoor garden settings [Silver, 2006, 400:note 38; Huvenne, 1979; Nevitt, 2003, 21-98; de Bruyn, 1604; de Bruyn, 1601; Hellerstedt, 1986, 42-44, no. 16; Renger, 1976, 190-203; Nichols, 1992, 32-42]. (pp. 52-53)

#844

Directly below the mast sit a monk and a nun facing each other across a hanging central pancake. They sing a duet that she accompanies on the lute, as they sit at a table plank with a drinking cup and plate full of cherries. Of course, these attributes of music and buffet normally are prerogatives of nobles and certainly not the behavior associated with monastic asceticism, let alone the courtship displayed between these ecclesiastics of opposite sexes. (p. 248)