Iconology of the Wayfarer Triptych

[Schu_rmeyer, 1923, 67] le tableau de Bosch serait une illustration de la Blauwe Schuit, mais ce dernier ignore ce qu’est cette _ Barque bleue _. Enklaar [Enklaar, 1933, 37-64, 145- 161, 21, 35-85] se livre à une étude approfondie de cette société, à partir du poème de Jacob van Oestvorcn, Blauwe Scuut, rédigé à la manière d’un statut, en l’an 1413, à l’occasion d’un tournoi organisé par ses membres en Zélande. Elle groupait tous ceux qu’animait la joie de vivre jusqu’à l’excès, qui faisaient fi des conventions et des convenances et qui prisaient plus la folie que la sagesse; elle comptait des membres dans toutes les classes sociales, y compris le clergé; en _taient exclus les voleurs, les assassins, les femmes de mauvaise vie… Plus large qu’une compagnie de carnaval, la Blauwe Schuit .tait une troupe de joyeux compères qui vivaient, en bohémiens, de représentations théâtrales parodiant la société et les événements importants. Son existence est signalée dans plusieurs villes des Dix-sept Provinces : sûrement à Anvers et à Utrccht, sans doute à Bréda et à Nimègue et, l’auteur le suppose, aussi à Bois-le-Duca. Des sociétés analogues ont existé en France, notamment la gilde des _ Enfants-sans-Souci _ à Paris. Le choix du bateau comme emblème, de même que celui de la couleur bleue, reste assez obscur. L’auteur pense reconnaître une Blauwe Schuit dans le tableau du Louvre. Les personnages se retrouveraient, selon lui, dans le poème de J. van Oestvorcn, sauf peut-être le fou lui-même. Pour étayer son hypothèse, il signale d’autres œuvres, de Bosch ou exécutées d’après cet artiste, qui reçoivent une interprétation plausible quand on y voit des représentations similaires : le Concert dans l’œuf (Senlis, collection Pontalba) et une série de gravures éditées par Jérôme Gock. L’une d’elles porte une inscription indiquant le nom de la barque : Die blau schuyte. (p.22)

Une autre, représentant une écaille voguant sur l’eau, avec tout un équipage [Lafond, 1914, 100], pourrait être mise en rapport avec la société joyeuse de Lyon, intitulée _ La Coquille _. Le tableau serait un symbole de la Blauwe Schuit et non une figuration réaliste car l’auteur pense que la compagnie participait aux carnavals avec des bateaux sur chars plutôt qu’avec de véritables bateaux. En effet, dans Varende Luyden [Enklaar, 1937, 78-79; “Carrus Navalis in Schönbartbuch”, 16th century], il signale un manuscrit conservé à la Bibliothèque universitaire de Hambourg, du X V Ie siècle, le Schônbartbuch, où sont rapportées les mascarades annuelles des bouchers de Nuremberg fêtant le retour du printemps. Une miniature montre un bateau bleu, monté sur roues et tiré à l’aide de cordes. Il est attaqué. par des hommes en armure et défendu par des personnages fantastiques, entre autres par des fous. Une oriflamme rouge avec croissant de lune le surmonte. L’auteur pense que le problème est définitivement résolu : la Blauwe Schuit était un carrus navalis. L’image de la barque figurant l’association de personnes partageant le même but ou le même sort est familière au moyen âge. L’auteur en cite plusieurs exemples, entre autres la Barque de l’Eglise, l’Arche de Noé, le voyage sur mer de sainte Dymphne. (pp.22-23)

Vermeylen [Vermeylen, 1939, 16-18] partage cette opinion. Il pense également que le mât pourrait être du noisetier, arbre qui dans la littérature populaire a reçu une signification symbolique, mais M. A. Lawalrée, directeur de laboratoire au Jardin botanique de l’Etat, Bruxelles, le nie : le mât et le buisson n’en ont ni les feuilles ni le port; il s’agirait plutôt d’aulne (communication orale du 27 janvier 1961). S’il s’agissait tout de même dans l’esprit du peintre de coudrier (les deux arbres se ressemblent), Delevoy [Delevoy, 1960, 31] y verrait une représentation symbolique de la bêtise. (p.23)

Celle-ci pourrait être germanique et remonter à l’époque de Tacite, quand défilaient de nombreux cortèges de printemps, avec un bateau sur un chariot, en l’honneur de la déesse Nerthus. Ces festivités païennes auraient survécu pendant le moyen âge: on pourrait signaler au X I I e siècle l’arrivée, à Maastricht et dans les Pays-Bas du sud, d’un vaisseau sur roues, venant d’Aix-la-Chapelle, qui mit tout le pays en émoi et fut la cause d’excès déplorés par l’abbé. Rudolfus de Saint-Trond (+ 1138), auteur de la Gesla Abbalum Trudonensiutn. Ce fut un événement de caractère social, essentiellement dirigé contre les tisserands, forcés de traîner et de garder le char durant tout le périple. Cependant le professeur P. Bonenfant [Bonenfant, 1958, 99-109] combat la thèse de l’origine antique de la _ nef des tisserands _ et constate que les bateaux de carnaval n’étaient pas encore connus au XIIc siècle. (p.23)

#10

Le sens amer de l’œuvre est mis en relief par Brion [Brion, 1938, 24], qui, replaçant la Nef des Fous dans l’ensemble de l’œuvre de Bosch, y reconnaît _ un résumé de toute l’humanité. Une société d’insensés embarqués dans une barque imbécile, sans voile et sans gouvernail. Une barque qui porte en elle le naufrage; avec ses passagers buvants et hurlants, affairés à des sottises, perdus dans leurs bruyantes querelles. Jamais le pessimisme des satiristes les plus douloureux n’aurait inventé cette synthèse de l’absurdité de la vie _. De même, pour van den Bossche [van den Bossche, 1944, 14, 17, pl. III], le tableau est la stigmatisation de la sottise, cause unique du mal et que Bosch décèle partout. (p.23)

#13

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)

#14

Mosmans [Mosmans, 1947, 70, note 30] pense que le tableau est plutôt une illustration d’une _ kermesse _ que du carnaval. Celle de Bois-le-Duc avait lieu le 24 juin, date qui convient mieux à la richesse du feuillage de l’arrière-plan. Elle donnait lieu à des excès dans le boire et le manger et à des déguisements, réprouvés par les bons catholiques. Or plusieurs auteurs ont l’impression que les passagers de la Nef des Fous sont déguisés. De Boschère [de Boschère, 1947, 19-20] parle des passagers comme _ d’exceptionnelles figurations de déséquilibre mental _ tandis que Fierens [Fierens, 1947, 54-55, pl. X IX] y voit _ une allégorie de la vie des insouciants qui n’ont ni boussole ni gouvernail et qui fatalement se briseront un jour sur l’écueil de la male mort _, opinion partagée par Leymarie [Leymarie, 1949, VIII-IX, pl 21]. (p.24)

#18

En 1957, Benesch [Benesch, 1957, 28, 33-34] accepte le rapprochement entre l’oeuvre littéraire de Sébastien Brant et le tableau [Bosch, ca. 1505-1510, “The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things”]. Celui-ci pourrait avoir fait partie d’une série des Péchés capitaux et signifier la gourmandise. L’auteur y verrait une transcription assez littérale du poème de Brant intitulé Dass Schluraffen Schiff car le peintre aurait transposé les jeux de mots de Brant : Nargon et Naragun dérivés du mot _ Aragon _, par allusion au mot germanique Narr, fou; de même Montflascun pour Montefiascone est une allusion à l’italien fiascone, grosse bouteille de vin… Benesch aussi avait d.j. constat. une certaine similitude entre la Nef des Fous et l’Allégorie dans laquelle il voit la peinture d’une nuit d’orgie. (p.25)

#19

En 1959, Baldass [Baldass, 1959, 16, 226-227] accepte de voir l’origine du thème dans la société carnavalesque flamande De Blauwe Schuit et lui reconnaît un parallèle littéraire dans la célèbre Narrenschiff de Sébastien Brant. (p.25)

#43

… 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)

Bosch and the Narrenschiff: a problem in relationships

#45

A related kind of scene, that is, a boating party without monks, allows a closer approach to the Louvre painting. Another manuscript from Bruges, roughly contemporaneous with that just discussed, contains a different boating scene. This appears in the lower margin of the Visitation scene in an horae in the Musee Conde, Chantilly [Meurgey, 1930, No. 79, p,. CXII]. Youthful couples are seen in the boat, and branches as well. A similar scene is found in another horae, attributed in part to the Master of the Dresden Prayerbook, which was sold from the Dyson Perrins Collection at Sotheby’s in 1958. In the calendar illustration for the month of May young couples are making music in a boat on a canal. A boating party as the May calendar illustration became popular in Bruges horae. The Chantilly May miniature shows a pair of lovers seated on the ground, but apparently it was made (seemingly it dates from the early 1480’s) before the boating scene became canonical for May illustrations in manuscripts from the Ghent-Bruges region. However, by the end of the first decade of the sixteenth century, a boating scene as the May calendar illustration is a constant in works from the shop of Simon Bening, Bruges’ leading illuminator. The scene is found in a closely related group of sumptuous manuscripts: the Breviary in the Musee Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp; the Golf Book in the British Museum, London (so called because one of its miniatures shows a golfing scene); the Hennessy Hours in the Bibliotheque Royale, Brussels; and the Da Costa Hours, Morgan Library, New York [Gaspar, 1932, pl. v.]. These manuscripts have been attributed to Simon Bening or Gerard Horenbout, or to the two artists in collaboration [Wescher, 1946, 198], and their May calendar scenes depict a musical boating party with one or more polers, male and female music-makers (usually flutists and lutenists), and leafy boughs in the boat. The Morgan Library manuscript illumination even shows a bottle hung over the side of the boat to keep its contents cool, as in Bosch’s painting. (p.273)

Bosch and the Narrenschiff: a problem in relationships

#46

It has been seen that at the end of the fifteenth century and in the early years of the sixteenth, a musical boating party was substituted in May miniatures for one of the several earlier iconographic norms. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, May scenes show a mounted young man hawking, as in the Rohan Hours, a type also widespread in the fourteenth century, or, as in the Limbourgs’ calendar illustration from the even more famous Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, a scene of the whole court hawking in May. Earlier, however, in northern Italy May was represented as a pleasant outing, with strolling couples and a luncheon al fresco, in the landscape painting in the Torre d’Aquila of the Castello de Buon Consiglio at Trent [Pächt, 1950, 38]. Then, in what is, according to Schretlen [Schretlen, 1950, 20, pl. 13a], a German copy of a Netherlandish calendar for the years 1458 to 1477, we find May characterized in a scene of a youthful courtier seated beneath a tree playing a lute for his lady love, an iconographic motif seemingly of Italian derivation, though the lady’s immersion in a tub has another source. The motif of a naked woman in a tub probably derives from the representation of one of Venus’ children in the popular planet pictures. Northern illuminations and prints repeat the theme of amorousdalliance as a characteristic of the May scene in the fifteenth century. The scene of a young music-making couple became the preferred type, though the earlier hawking scene also appeared, but with far less frequency. However, only in the Ghent-Bruges region does the musical boating party with boughs in the boat appear as the May calendar scene. (pp. 273-274)

Bosch and the Narrenschiff: a problem in relationships

#51

One may view the work in the same light as Bosch’s Lisbon triptych of the Temptation of St. Anthony, to which it may be reated in time and style. As the Lisbon triptych presents a synthesis of medieval belief and the several themes of St. Anthony’s temptations, so the Louvre work forms a whole in which the monk and his companions are, according to Bosch, fools like those who go on musical boating parties, which lead the participants into sinful behavior. A conclusion that Bosch was a fifteenth-century Anthony Comstock seems particularly apt at this point [Panofsky, 1953, 357]. (p.274)

Bosch and the Narrenschiff: a problem in relationships

#85

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)

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

#86

Enklaar [Enklaar, 1956, 90f] also mentioned… a representation of the carrus navalis, a boat on wheels pulled along by participants in the carnival procession celebrating the return of Spring, which is depicted in a 16th-century manuscript, the so-called Schönbartbuch [”Carrus Navalis in Schönbartbuch”, 1908; “Carrus Navalis in Schönbartbuch”, 16th century]. Since the carrus navalis is blue and bears on its mast a pennant with a crescent moon similar to the one in Bosch’s painting, Enklaar concludes that the blue boats in Oestvoren’s poem, Cock’s engraving and Bosch’s Ship of Fools, are all derived from it. (p.47)

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

#88

The miniature in the Schönbartbuch, with its blue moon boat, depicts the celebrations connected with the approach of spring, the Spring Festival being held on the day of the new moon coinciding with the spring solstice [Saintyves, 1937, 381; “Carrus Navalis in Schönbartbuch”, 16th century; “Carrus Navalis in Schönbartbuch”, 1908]. There are numerous rerpesentations of the lunar carnival boat with music-makers in illustrations of this festival in 15th- and 16th-century calendars. For instance, a woodcut for the month of May by Hans Sebald Beham [Bax, 1949, 194; Beham, ca. 1530-1562] shows music-makers in a boat which has a flat bottle hanging over the side and is being pushed by naked figures, all of which elements also occur in Bosch’s representation of the lunar boat. (p.57)

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

#99

Some of the figures in The Ship of Fools are making musica. A fondness for music, song and the playing of instruments is yet another typical characteristic of the phlegmatic temperament [Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, 1964, 127, 130, note 10], and couples making music often occur in illustrations of it. (p.63)

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

#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

#147

And Sebastian Brant, in his Ship of Fools first printed in 1494 [Brant, 1962], devotes each chapter to the description of a different sort of folly, the absorption in which distracts men from Truth and the attainment of salvation. He imagines them all sailing in a fleet of ships, all adrift in the dark, foolishly given up to merrymaking and carnal delights, careless of ever getting into port. (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)

#161

Bosch heeft zijn sujetten en zo hebben de organisatoren van de vertoningen te Nijmegen, Bergen-op-Zoom en Neurenberg hun gezellen in een schip geplaatst, óf omdat echte pierewaaiers wel eens in een schuitwagen of een varende schuit door de stad trokken, óf omdat een schuit een symbool kon zijn van losbandig feestvermaak. Waarschijnlijk heeft Jeroen daarbij niet aan een Blauwe Schuit [van Oestvoren, 1413] gedacht, misschien aan een Lichte… Het is mogelijk, dat hij zijn werk geschilderd heeft onder invloed van een „punt, dat hij gezien of zelf voor een optocht ontworpen had… (pp. 191-192)

Fish hanging on tree branch from Ship of Fools

#181

De vis aan de tak is een symbool van losbandig feestvermaak [Bax, 1949, 166] (p. 193)

#188

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)

#189

Men meent de meesten terug te vinden in de bemanning van de Blauwe Schuit van Jacop van Oestvoren[van Oestvoren, 1413; Brant, 1962; Badius, 1498; Maeterlinck, 1907, 219; Gossart, 1907, 191; Demonts, 1919, 6 ff.; de Tolnay, 1937, 28, 64, note 65; van der Heyden, 1562; van der Heyden, 1559; Combe, 1946, 36, 66, note 128]… De nar en de naakte kerels ontbreken echter. Reeds bleek ons, dat vele leden van de bemanning, die volgens Jacops gedicht de Blauwe Schuit vullen moet, nooit tot het Brabantse Carnavalsgezelschap behoord zullen hebben, maar dat zij genoemd worden om de sfeer van losheid en dwaasheid weer te geven, welke de club nastreefde. Zij zijn geijkte typen, die voor de 15de-eeuwers zinnebeelden waren van het lichte en losse leven, en ook de sujetten van Bosch lijken zulke stereotiepe figuren. De vent „inden haselare, de nar met zijn marot, de zijn maag legende vraat, de man die de grote pollepel hanteert, zuster Lute en haar verlopen monnik, de jolige drinkebroer met de op een stok gestoken kan, de drank- en minlustige bagijn, de neergevallen dronkaard en de twee naakte boeven, die gaarne bij het nat zijn, zij allen waren voor van Akens tijdgenoten symbolen. Zo’n stelletje heeft men in werkelijkheid nooit te zamen gezien, evenmin als de bemanning van de Blauwe Schuit uit het gedicht, behalve dan wellicht in een schuit als die te Nijmegen of Bergen-op-Zoom, waarin men hen kan nagebootst en gehekeld hebben. Maar indien ooit echte fuifnummers in een schuit door een stad getrokken zijn, waren zij niet zulke symbolen als de pretmakers van Jeroen [Bax, 1949, 196:note 112]. (p. 194)

#200

Het trekt de aandacht, dat de mast van het scheepje op het schilderij van Bosch uitloopt in een wijdvertakt en boom, die eraan vastgebonden is. Men mag aannemen, dat ook dit een symbolische beteekenis heeft en er mogelijk een reminiscentie van de oude lentefeesten in zien. Ik zou in verband hiermede de aandacht willen vestigen op een zestiende-eeuwsch liedeken uit het Antwerpsche Liedboek van 1544 [von Fallersleben, 1968, 333], waarin de „ghildekens alle”, van eiken stand, rang of geslacht, monniken, nonnen, bagijnen, cellebroeders, kooplieden, ambachtslieden, poorters, deurwaarders, oplichters, trompetters, fluiters, tamboers, slordige huisvrouwen, „ghesellekens van avontueren”, meisjes, mannen en vrouwen, zotten en zottinnen, ten slotte nog’ speciaal „papen ende clercken”, genoodigdworden „om te comen in den haselaer”. Kalff heeft met een beroep op Dodonaeus, die zegt, dat de hazelaar invloed zou hebben op het sluiten van huwelijken, dit lied willen verklaren als een aanprijzing van het huwelijk, of liever, daar hijzelf terstond inzag, dat de veronderstelling van een dergelijke braaf-maatschappelijke strekking hier misplaatst was, als een algemeene opwekking tot zingenot [Kalff, 1884, 352 ff]. Doch ik twijfel aan een algemeene strekking van dit lied. Regels als „den haselaer es op gherecht” en „tgaet te vastelavont waert” toonen, dat het hier een tijdelijke fuifgelegenheid betreft, een Carnavalsfeest. Ook Kalff blijkt elders overtuigd, dat wij hier met een Vastenavondsgilde te doen hebben [Kalff, 1884, 469 ff.]. (p. 150)

Enklaar, 1933

De Blaue Schult

#204

Wel is hier sprake van het schip der levensschipbreukelingen, maar toch roept de plaatsbepaling levendig het fuiversschip, dat Bosch schilderde, in de herinnering. Het maakt den indruk, alsof de dichter Sinte Reynuyts schip werkelijk als een Camavalsvaartuig voorstelt, wanneer hij tot aanmonsteren opwekt met de regels [von Fallersleben, 1968, 73-64] (p. 155)

Enklaar, 1933

De Blaue Schult

#217

Het trekt de aandacht, dat de mast van het scheepje op het schilderij van Bosch uitloopt in een wijdvertakt en boom, die eraan vastgebonden is. Men mag aannemen, dat ook dit een symbolische beteekenis heeft en er mogelijk een reminiscentie van de oude lentefeesten in zien. Ik zou in verband hiermede de aandacht willen vestigen op een zestiende-eeuwsch liedeken uit het Antwerpsche Liedboek van 1544 [von Fallersleben, 1968, 333], waarin de „ghildekens alle”, van eiken stand, rang of geslacht, monniken, nonnen, bagijnen, cellebroeders, kooplieden, ambachtslieden, poorters, deurwaarders, oplichters, trompetters, fluiters, tamboers, slordige huisvrouwen, „ghesellekens van avontueren”, meisjes, mannen en vrouwen, zotten en zottinnen, ten slotte nog’ speciaal „papen ende clercken”, genoodigdworden „om te comen in den haselaer”. Kalff heeft met een beroep op Dodonaeus, die zegt, dat de hazelaar invloed zou hebben op het sluiten van huwelijken, dit lied willen verklaren als een aanprijzing van het huwelijk, of liever, daar hijzelf terstond inzag, dat de veronderstelling van een dergelijke braaf-maatschappelijke strekking hier misplaatst was, als een algemeene opwekking tot zingenot [Kalff, 1884, 352 ff.; Sloet, 1890, 80 ff.; Kalff, 1923, 205, 231, note 1]. Doch ik twijfel aan een algemeene strekking van dit lied. Regels als „den haselaer es op gherecht” en „tgaet te vastelavont waert” toonen, dat het hier een tijdelijke fuifgelegenheid betreft, een Carnavalsfeest. Ook Kalff blijkt elders overtuigd, dat wij hier met een Vastenavondsgilde te doen hebben [Kalff, 1884, 469 ff.]. (p. 71)

Varende Luyden. Studiën over de middeleeuwsche groepen van onmaatschappelijken in de Nederlanden.

#221

Varende Luyden. Studiën over de middeleeuwsche groepen van onmaatschappelijken in de Nederlanden.

#223

Inde Universiteitsbibliotheek te Hamburg wordt een zestiendeeeuwsch Schönbartbuch bewaard [”Carrus Navalis in Schönbartbuch”, 16th century; “Carrus Navalis in Schönbartbuch”, 1908], waarin de maskeraden der Neurenbergsche beenhouwers, die jaarlijks in optochten den wederkeer der lente huldigden, beschreven en afgebeeld zijn… Het schip is aan zijn buitenkant met allerlei visschen, palingen en kreeften, beschilderd en voert in top een roode wimpel met halve maan, zooals men ook op het Parijsche schilderij van Bosch ziet. Deze, voor zoover mij bekend, eenige ’) authentieke, gelijktijdige afbeelding van de Blauwe Schuit lost het probleem voorgoed op: de Blauwe Schuit is ongetwijfeld een rijdend schip, een carrus navalis, geweest. (pp. 78-79)

Varende Luyden. Studiën over de middeleeuwsche groepen van onmaatschappelijken in de Nederlanden.

#225

Jester from Ship of Fools

Gelukkig zijn wij met de kwestie, hoe men zich de zotten met bellen heeft voor te stellen. In de houtsneden, die Brant’s Narrenschiff illustreeren, zien wij bellen dragende narren in het traditioneele narrenpak met de ezelsooren, die wel een herinnering zijn aan het feest van den Ezelpaus [Neurdenburg, 1910, 51, note 2; Kalff, 1923, 240]. Dat dit kostuum ook door de Camavalsnarren gedragen werd, bewijst het schilderij van Bosch in het Louvre en een teekeningetje in een vijftiendeeeuwsch handschrift in de Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève te Parijs, dat volgens het bijschrift een „stultus stultissimus”, dus een prince des Sots voorstelt [Suchier & Birch-Hirschfeld, 1913, 303]. Ook het figuurtje op het titelblad van de oorspronkelijke uitgave van Le jeu du Prince des Sotz van 1512 vertoont een dergelijken nar [Gringore, 1512]. (p. 83)

Varende Luyden. Studiën over de middeleeuwsche groepen van onmaatschappelijken in de Nederlanden.

#228

The Van Eycks and their followers

… a Louvre drawing and a picture closely corresponding to it in the Benoit Collection in Paris represent a lost picture of a jollification in a boat dating from Bosch’s middle period. (p. 346)

Conway, 1921

#229

The Van Eycks and their followers

A Boating Party (p. 510)

Conway, 1921

#235

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

A fragment of a painting presents a somewhat similar picture of night revelry (p. 34)

Hieronymus Bosch and the thinking of the late Middle Ages.

#236

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

It shows a carousing couple hidden in a tent. (p. 34)

Hieronymus Bosch and the thinking of the late Middle Ages.

#238

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

A fragment of a painting presents a somewhat similar picture of night revelry (p. 34)

Hieronymus Bosch and the thinking of the late Middle Ages.

#239

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

In its warm, light, rose and golden tones, standing out against a deep honey brown and greenish blue, the little painting is like a prelude to the revelries of Peter Bruegel [Bruegel, 1559 (The Fight between Carnival and Lent); Bruegel, 1567] (p. 34)

Hieronymus Bosch and the thinking of the late Middle Ages.

#251

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

In its warm, light, rose and golden tones, standing out against a deep honey brown and greenish blue, the little painting is like a prelude to the revelries of Peter Bruegel [Bruegel, 1559, “The Fight between Carnival and Lent”; Bruegel, 1567, “The Land of Cockaigne”] (p. 34)

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

#260

Hieronymus Bosch: First impressions

Nuns and monk were not always as pious as they promised to be. These two are having more fun than people then thought they should. (p. 24)

Schwartz, 1997

#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

#382

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

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

#406

De ommegang met het wagenschip

Wij zien hier als steeds den loszinnigen geestelijke, het minlustige vrouwspersoon, twistende gezellen, watergeesten (verwant aan denWilden Man) en den met bellen versierden Nar, die zich hier wijs afzijdig houdt. (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

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

#457

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#490

Hieronymus Bosch c.1450-1516

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 ranch serves as a rudder. (p. 28)

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

Table with beaker and cherries from Ship of Fools

#525

Is the subject gluttony or lunacy? Certainly the small handful of cherries is more likely to exasperate the already desperate desire of these madmen than to satisfy their stomachs, as Cinotti [Cinotti, 1966] points out. (p. 66)

Linfert, 1989

#527

Outwardly everything looks clear and unproblematic, nothing more than a group of people larking about in a boat headed for the open sea. But the boat itself (like the so-called Ship of the Church in earlier pictures) is no longer seaworthy. Is it really under way? (p. 66)

Linfert, 1989

#534

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)

#535

The panel may have been part of a diptych or triptych dedicated to the theme of folly [Demonts, 1919; de Tolnay, 1937]: represented here is the rudderless boat drifting perhaps towards fools’ paradise, Brant’s Narragonia [Brant, 1944; Brant, 1962]; Helene Adhémar [Adhémar, 1962] thinks it is the Ship of the Church, and on the point of being wrecked. Attempts have been made to interpret the painting in a psychoanalytic key by identifying the erotic symbols [Solier, 1961]; but the various elements are better explained in the climate of the period, as a satire on one of the seven sins or of the five senses. Represented here are ‘Gula’ and ‘Luxuria’; most of the characters are intent on food and drink- one has had too much and is vomiting over the boat’s side. (p. 93)

#536

The monk and the nun, as well as being obviously foolish characters, evidently have a sinful relationship (cherries, according to Bax, have erotic connotations); they are indulging in profane music-making too. (p. 93)

#541

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)

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

#544

… was first published by Tolnay [de Tolnay, 1937], who suggested it might depict an episode concerning the Prodigal Son… Adhémar… believed it to have been a whole symbolising May or Spring) [Adhémar, 1962; Bosch, ca. 1475-1500, “La Nef des fous (The Ship of Fools)”]… Baldass believed it, instead, to be part of a panel illustrating the Deadly Sins [Baldass, 1959]. Bax (1949) viewed it as the summer feast of a merry party, and interpreted the various objects as symbols of forbidden love. The fragment depicts in a lively style akin to that of The Ship of Fools [Bosch, ca. 1475-1500, “La Nef des fous (The Ship of Fools)”] and with a delightful lightness of touch, Lust (a couple of lovers under a tent) and Gluttony, in the shape of a sort of Flemish Silenus [Seymour, 1961] bestriding a floating cask from which wine spills: this figure inspired the ‘Carnival’ of Bruegel’s Carnival and Lent in Vienna [Bruegel, 1559, “The Fight between Carnival and Lent”]. (p. 93)

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

#545

… was first published by Tolnay [de Tolnay, 1937], who suggested it might depict an episode concerning the Prodigal Son… Adhémar… believed it to have been a whole symbolising May or Spring) [Adhémar, 1962; Bosch, ca. 1475-1500]… Baldass believed it, instead, to be part of a panel illustrating the Deadly Sins [Baldass, 1959]. Bax (1949) viewed it as the summer feast of a merry party, and interpreted the various objects as symbols of forbidden love. The fragment depicts in a lively style akin to that of The Ship of Fools [Bosch, ca. 1475-1500] and with a delightful lightness of touch, Lust (a couple of lovers under a tent) and Gluttony, in the shape of a sort of Flemish Silenus [Seymour, 1961] bestriding a floating cask from which wine spills: this figure inspired the ‘Carnival’ of Bruegel’s Carnival and Lent in Vienna [Bruegel, 1559 (The Fight between Carnival and Lent)]. (p. 93)

#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

Hieronymus Bosch. Painter and Draughtsman

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

#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)

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

#769

The Rest of Bosch’s Ship of Fools

The ship with its merrymakers remains the principal motif, but its theme is amplified by the glutton astride a barrel who seems to herald the vessel’s approach to those ashore, some of whom have already abandoned their clothing and taken to the water. Although the situation of the ship’s occupants seems less precarious when now seen close to land, the presence of the knight in the water adds a new threat to their security. In this panel, Bosch represents Gluttony and Lust as dangerous and also foolish, for an indifferent jester presides over all. That he chose to combine the two sins in one panel need not surprise us. Gregory the Great had put Gluttony and Lust at the end of his list of the Seven Cardinal Sins and labeled them carnal [Bloomfield, 1952, 72]. His example was followed by a frequent association of them in subsequent medieval commentary [Bloomfield, 1952, 73, 89, 140, 174f, 197, 215], and Bosch included allusions to gluttony in his illustration of Lust in the Prado Tabletop [Morganstern, 1984, 301:note 34; Baldass, 1968; Bosch, ca. 1505-1510]. (pp. 300-301)

Morganstern, 1984

#805

…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)

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

#806

…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)

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

#807

…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)

#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)

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)