Iconology of the Wayfarer Triptych

#44

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

Some of the motifs in the Louvre painting have striking connections with Flemish manuscript illuminations of Bosch’s own day. Monks in a boat shown parallel to the picture plane, as in Bosch’s panel, can be found in several manuscripts that illustrate the Miracles de Nostre Dame [Le Tavernier & Miélot, ca. 1456; Le Tavernier & Miélot, ca. 1470]. One of these, now in Paris, and probably made in the Tavernier shop in Bruges in the 1470’s, shows a group of monks on a pleasure outing in a boat [Delaissé, 1959, pl. 59]. They are frightened by the sight of devils carrying off the soul of an apostate. In fear of drowning from demonic attack, they pray to the Virgin for aid, which is given to them [Laborde, 1929, I; 33ff]. The scene is clearly not an exact parallel to Bosch’s painting, but it does portray monks in a boat engaged in what the text implies is pleasure-seeking, and thus sinful behavior. From this we may conclude that a boating party and sinful monks were readily associated ideas in Bosch’s time (p.273)d

Cuttler, 1969

Bosch and the Narrenschiff: a problem in relationships

#104

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

… worldly vice of luxury…show the combination of lust and indulgence known among the Seven Sins as luxuria. We can easily compare the scene of Luxuria from the Seven Deadly Sins panel, which displays a similar combination of rich costume, taste, and eros [Bosch, ca. 1505-1510]. (p.630)

Silver, 2001

God in the Details: Bosch and Judgment(s)

#106

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

… worldly vice of luxury…show the combination of lust and indulgence known among the Seven Sins as luxuria. We can easily compare the scene of Luxuria from the Seven Deadly Sins panel [Bosch, ca. 1505-1510], which displays a similar combination of rich costume, taste, and eros…we find there some of the same costly foodstuffs (especially cherries and roast fowl) and wine flasks, as well as a fool in his standard costume. (p.630)

Silver, 2001

God in the Details: Bosch and Judgment(s)

#107

Nun playing the lute from Ship of Fools

Music (often an emblem of wasteful indulgence in Bosch, especially in the Hell wing of The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych) is common to both worlds of luxury, but the Prado panel contains both harp and recorder, while the Paris panel has only a lute. (p.630)

Silver, 2001

God in the Details: Bosch and Judgment(s)

#108

Nun playing the lute from Ship of Fools

Ironically, these instruments tend to occur in images with angelic musicians in 15th-century Flemish paintings, presumably as prestige instruments associated with (heavenly) court life, in contrast to the more vulgar bagpipes and other peasant instruments. [Winternitz, 1967, 66-85, 129-149; Hammerstein, 1962; Brant, 1944, 186.] (p.647, note 19)

Silver, 2001

God in the Details: Bosch and Judgment(s)

#111

Nun and monk from Ship of Fools

The presence of monks and nuns in the Ship of Fools further underscores the hypocrisy and folly of wrong behavior and personal indulgence (emblematized in the center of the boat by the giant hanging pancake, the traditional indulgence food of carnival). (p.630)

Silver, 2001

God in the Details: Bosch and Judgment(s)

#112

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

…the Paris-New Haven wing embodies a deadly sin here, luxury, both of gourmandise (rather than the sin of gluttony, with its own segment on the circle of sins) and of sexuality (note that the scene of the punishment for luxury in the Hell roundel of the Prado sins consists of a fornicating couple in bed with demons[Bosch, ca. 1505-1510, “The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things”]). (p.630)

Silver, 2001

God in the Details: Bosch and Judgment(s)

#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

#188

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

Zijn ook de losbandigen van Bosch Meifeest-vierders? Op hen is Jeroens symboliek evenzeer van toepassing als op Vastenavondgangers, zij is zelfs meer in overeenstemming met de tijd van het jaar, al zijn de kersen in Mei nog zeer zeldzaam en is het lover te vol voor de Meimaand. Hekelde de schilder ze dus naar aanleiding van uitspattingen bij een feest in de tweede helft van Juni of de eerste van Juli, bijv. het St-Jansfeest (24 Juni) [Bax, 1949, 140; Mosmans, 1931, 70; Enklaar, 1937, 68]? (p. 194)

Bax, 1949

Ontcijfering van Jeroen Bosch

#258

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

… show people wasting their lives on pleasure and wealth. (p. 24)

Schwartz, 1997

Hieronymus Bosch: First impressions

#259

Man on his deathbed with a chest from Death and the Miser

… show people wasting their lives on pleasure and wealth. (p. 24)

Schwartz, 1997

Hieronymus Bosch: First impressions

#322

Old tavern from The Pedlar

By around 1500 the motif and theme of the evil inn, encountered repeatedly in the late Middle Ages, had condensed into a symbol of all that was bad for the civic elite and the aristocracy… The evil inn motif is also found in… the Pedlar… (p. 114)

Fischer, 2016

Jheronimus Bosch

#380

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

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)

Koldeweij, Vandenbroeck & Vermet, 2001

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)

Koldeweij, Vandenbroeck & Vermet, 2001

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#382

Couple in a pink tent with clothes on shore 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], 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)

Koldeweij, Vandenbroeck & Vermet, 2001

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#390

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

… 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)

Koldeweij, Vandenbroeck & Vermet, 2001

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#391

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

… 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)

Koldeweij, Vandenbroeck & Vermet, 2001

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#457

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

… 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)

Koldeweij, Vandenbroeck & Vermet, 2001

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#481

Figure with letter from Death and the Miser

A winged and ratheaded demon emerging from underneath the chest holds up a paper sealed with red wax. It has been suggested that the paper is a letter of indulgence, a mortgage, a paper of false legitimacy, or a promissory note [Cuttler, 1968, 202; Cuttler, 1969, 275] Although there are no markings on the paper that would identify it as a specific type of document, it would seem likely that it refers to the money-making activities of misers, such as lending money at high rates of interest. Capitalism in the Netherlands of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries resulted in an increasing use of paper credit as a substitute for hard currency. (p. 18)

Hand & Wolff, 1986

Early Netherlandish Painting

#620

Wooden gate with ox and bird from The Pedlar

The spiritual analogy with the Prodigal Son [English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Luke, 15:11-32] is obvious: Here a son has been lost to God (just as Adam was) because in the idleness of his dissolute life he totally forgot that the six days of Creation should be the model for man’s creative daily work. Instead, he lived his lives according to the “six things the Lord doth hate,” which are likewise enumerated in Proverbs [English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Proverbs, 6:9-19]. (p. 265)

Fraenger, 1999

Hieronymus Bosch

#729

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

Mit den «Müßiggängerschiffen» (heißen sie nun «Narrenschiff»,«Leichtschiff», «Schluraffen Schiff», «Sint Reynuut» oder «Blauwe Schuit»)sollen die Müßiggänger satirisiert werden, die sich von der übrigen Gesellschaftabsondern. Das «Narrenschiff» wurde hauptsächlich gegen die Müßiggänger aufgerichtet. Die Passagiere dieser Fahrzeuge streben ein irdisches Paradies an, sie leben ms «Blaue» hinem [Leeber, 1939-1940; Enklaar, 1937, 35-85; Enklaar, 1940, 111], achten Jedoch nicht aufden «gemeinen Nutz» (res publica) und vergessen vor allem das Himmelreich. Sie ahnen nicht, daß die dünne Schale ihres Gefährtes sie nur wenigeZentimeter vom Tode trennt. Ihr sinnliches Treiben 1st Selbstbetrug, da ihr Ende naht. Diese – nach Meinung der Humanisten um 1500 – gottlosen Prasser und Schlemmer segeln ohne Steuer und Kompaß auf dem «Meerder Welt» ihrem sicheren Untergang entgegen. Die «Müßiggängerschiffe» sollen in satirisch-didaktischer Absicht sowohl vor dem persönlichenSchiffbruch wie vor dem «Schiffbruch» der Gemeinschaft und des Staateswarnen. Sie enthalten ein Gleichnis für «jedermann», um sich selbst zu erkennenund Maß zu halten. Diesem Impetus folgt auch Boschs «Narrenschiffo,das zu einem Laster-Triptychon gehört, das vor gefährlicher Armutund übertriebenem Reichtum warnen will. (pp. 167-168)

Hartau, 2002

“Narrenschiffe” um 1500

#788

Ragged poor man from The Pedlar

…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)

Tuttle, 1981

Bosch’s Image of Poverty

#797

Left leg with bandage from The Pedlar

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)

Tuttle, 1981

Bosch’s Image of Poverty

#798

Hanging hoof amulet and white string from coat from The Pedlar

The hoof appears to be associated with gluttony and lust – sins that were known to prosper in public houses. Within Bosch’s own oeuvre, hooves are shown in contexts that seem to establish this association. A hoof is portrayed on a banner flying above a tent that serves as a tavern and brothel in the fragment of a painting at Yale, Allegory of Gluttony and Lust [Bosch, ca. 1495–1500; de Tolnay, 1966, 94]. Another hoof is shown clutched in the greedy hand of the jug-holding glutton in the Seven Deadly Sins tabletop [Bosch, ca. 1505-1510; de Tolnay, 1966, 66]. The Rotterdam poor man’s hoof would thus suggest that he is guilty of similar carnal indulgences. (pp. 94-95)

Tuttle, 1981

Bosch’s Image of Poverty

#799

Catskin on backpack from The Pedlar

The meaning of the catskin hanging on the poor man’s basket is more enigmatic. However, some popular association between dead cats and dissipation may be suggested by the appearance of another dead cat in the Basel tondo of the Prodigal Son in poverty. This popular association may have been current in Italy as well. Condivi’s explanation of the panther skin that Michelangelo’s figure of Bacchus holds states that the cat is dead because it is meant to symbolize the fatal consequences of dissolute living [Condivi, 1927, 28]. (p. 95)

Tuttle, 1981

Bosch’s Image of Poverty

#805

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

…lively nudes (and clothed figures) indulging their appetites for food and luxury with the implication of sex) also appear in a divided wing, shared by the Ship of Fools (Musee du Louvre, Paris) and Allegory of Gluttony (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven) [Bosch, ca. 1495–1500] from a dismembered triptych [Morganstern, 1984, 295-302]. (p. 28)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#806

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

…lively nudes (and clothed figures) indulging their appetites for food and luxury with the implication of sex) also appear in a divided wing, shared by the Ship of Fools (Musee du Louvre, Paris) [Bosch, ca. 1475-1500] and Allegory of Gluttony (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven) from a dismembered triptych [Morganstern, 1984, 295-302]. (p. 28)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#807

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

…lively nudes (and clothed figures) indulging their appetites for food and luxury with the implication of sex) also appear in a divided wing, shared by the Ship of Fools (Musee du Louvre, Paris) [Bosch, ca. 1475-1500] and Allegory of Gluttony (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven) from a dismembered triptych [Morganstern, 1984, 295-302]. (p. 28)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#812

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

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)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#813

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

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)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#814

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

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)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#815

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

…the association of water with sinful self-indulgence in earlier Bosch imagery, particularly in the Ship of Fools… [van der Heyden, 1559; van der Heyden, 1562] (p. 68)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#816

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

…the association of water with sinful self-indulgence in earlier Bosch imagery, particularly in… Allegory of Gluttony… [van der Heyden, 1559; van der Heyden, 1562] (p. 68)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#817

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

…the association of water with sinful self-indulgence in earlier Bosch imagery, particularly in the Ship of Fools and Allegory of Gluttony… [van der Heyden, 1559; van der Heyden, 1562] (p. 68)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#831

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

…the Paris-New Haven wing presents a consistent enactment of another deadly sin: luxuria, sensuous self-indulgence featuring lust and gluttony in combination. In some respects, this fleshly weakness can be seen as the same kind of product of prosperity that provoked the image of Death and the Usurer [Bosch, ca. 1485-1490]… Bosch exploring such lustful and gluttonous impulses in me central panel of his Garden of Earthly Delights [Bosch, ca. 1490-1500]… its giant fruits and sexually cavorting nudes display a more extreme form of the same behavior as Bosch represents in his Ship of Fools and Allegory of Gluttony wing. (p. 245)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#832

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

…the Paris-New Haven wing presents a consistent enactment of another deadly sin: luxuria, sensuous self-indulgence featuring lust and gluttony in combination. In some respects, this fleshly weakness can be seen as the same kind of product of prosperity that provoked the image of Death and the Usurer [Bosch, ca. 1485-1490]… Bosch exploring such lustful and gluttonous impulses in me central panel of his Garden of Earthly Delights [Bosch, ca. 1490-1500]… its giant fruits and sexually cavorting nudes display a more extreme form of the same behavior as Bosch represents in his Ship of Fools and Allegory of Gluttony wing. (p. 245)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#833

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

…the Paris-New Haven wing presents a consistent enactment of another deadly sin: luxuria, sensuous self-indulgence featuring lust and gluttony in combination. In some respects, this fleshly weakness can be seen as the same kind of product of prosperity that provoked the image of Death and the Usurer [Bosch, ca. 1485-1490]… Bosch exploring such lustful and gluttonous impulses in me central panel of his Garden of Earthly Delights [Bosch, ca. 1490-1500]… its giant fruits and sexually cavorting nudes display a more extreme form of the same behavior as Bosch represents in his Ship of Fools and Allegory of Gluttony wing. (p. 245)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#837

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

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

Hieronymus Bosch

#855

Pennant with cresent symbol from Ship of Fools

No one could view the Bosch panels without realizing that this indulgence is sinful. But the Louvre panel contains explicit labels that mark the scene as evil. For one thing, the banner fluttering from the tree-mast bears the crescent moon of Islam, no longer associated with turbaned figures in exotic dress but now atop a boat with Christian monastics in the midst of their pleasures. (p. 252)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#858

Ragged poor man from The Pedlar

The more specific identity of this figure as a peddler can be determined by observing that he carries a rncksack for his goods [Renger, 1969; de Bruyn, 2001 (Hieronymous Bosch’s So-Called Prodigal Son Tondo); de Bruyn, 2001]. His poverty is obvious from his scruffy costume with holes in the knee and from his bandaged leg with unmatched footwear. But he does have a small coin purse with a knife at his waist. He passes by a country inn that obviously doubles as a brothel, as the caged bird under the cave makes explicit… Earlier scholars attempted to interpret the main figure as the Prodigal Son of the gospel parable [English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Luke, 15:11-32], who is reduced to repentant poverty by wine, women, and song in taverns, and forced to dwell among swine. But this figure is grey-haired rather than youthful, and there is no reason in the parable for him to carry a peddler’s pack, either before he squanders his patrimony or afterwards. (p. 254)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#860

Backpack from The Pedlar

That pack certainly explains why Bosch’s figure is an itinerant, wandering the countryside. Because of his specific occupation, the Rotterdam vagrant cannot be fully allegorized as a true everyman, Augustine’s man-the-pilgrim moving through this world, as some scholars have argued [Chew, 1962; Tuve, 1966, 145-218]. Of course this allegory underlies the Puritan John Bunyan’s famous Pilgrim’s Progress [Bunyan, 1678], a consideration of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. But peddlers in the sixteenth century were frequently associated with tavern life, that is, with gambling, drinking, and deceit. Such a figure actually appears with his pack behind the name figure in the Prodigal Son by Jan van Hemessen [van Hemessen, 1536]; he holds dice, and his clothing contrasts with the extravagant fasluons of the Prodigal Son himself (the denouement of the parable with both the swine and the return to the father appears in miniature in the background) [Renger, 1970, 27]. (p. 254)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#861

Ragged poor man from The Pedlar

That pack certainly explains why Bosch’s figure is an itinerant, wandering the countryside. Because of his specific occupation, the Rotterdam vagrant cannot be fully allegorized as a true everyman, Augustine’s man-the-pilgrim moving through this world, as some scholars have argued [Chew, 1962; Tuve, 1966, 145-218]. Of course this allegory underlies the Puritan John Bunyan’s famous Pilgrim’s Progress [Bunyan, 1678], a consideration of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. But peddlers in the sixteenth century were frequently associated with tavern life, that is, with gambling, drinking, and deceit. Such a figure actually appears with his pack behind the name figure in the Prodigal Son by Jan van Hemessen [van Hemessen, 1536]; he holds dice, and his clothing contrasts with the extravagant fasluons of the Prodigal Son himself (the denouement of the parable with both the swine and the return to the father appears in miniature in the background) [Renger, 1970, 27]. (p. 254)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#868

Ladle on backpack from The Pedlar

The presence on his pack of a prominent large spoon (or ladle) of self-indulgence as well as a cat skin ensures that this peddler is neither without desires nor an innocent [Silver, 2006, 410-411:note 30; Bax, 1979, 216-217; Zupnick, 1968, 115-132; Renger, 1970, 129-142; Bruegel, 1568 (Les Mendiants ou Les Culs-de-jatte); Tóth-Ubbens, 1987, 73-76]. (p. 256-257)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch

#869

Catskin on backpack from The Pedlar

The presence on his pack of a prominent large spoon (or ladle) of self-indulgence as well as a cat skin ensures that this peddler is neither without desires nor an innocent [Silver, 2006, 410-411:note 30; Bax, 1979, 216-217; Zupnick, 1968, 115-132; Renger, 1970, 129-142; Bruegel, 1568 (Les Mendiants ou Les Culs-de-jatte); Tóth-Ubbens, 1987, 73-76]. For example, a cat stealing a squab from a plate appears prominently within the painting of a brothel by Jan van Hemessen [van Hemessen, 1543], in which another older traveler, still wearing his hat, is being accosted, despite his feeble resistance, by a group of young harlots as well as an old bawd; meanwhile a dog crouches beneath the table. The cat, then, should be construed as an image of these loose women, and wearing a cat skin could show (like the bandage on his leg) that the peddler has a past in the taverns as a “skirt chaser” or “cat hunter” (katsjager). Hemessen’s image… offers the equivalent of an interior view of the tavern-brothel of Bosch’s background, complete with drink and women plus tavern cats and dogs.(p. 256-257)

Silver, 2006

Hieronymus Bosch