Iconology of the Wayfarer Triptych

#9

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

Devoghelaere [Devoghelaere, 1937, 43-50] fait remarquer la fragilité des comparaisons de Demonts et de Enklaar, entre le tableau de Bosch et Das Narrenschiff de Brant d’une part, et le Blauwe Scuut de Jacob van Oestvoren de l’autre… Il signale aussi des similitudes, au point de vue de la composition, entre le tableau et le volet gauche du retable de Tiefenbronn, de Lucas Moser, peint vers 1431 et représentant un épisode de la légende de Marie-Madclcine [Moser, “The Magdalene Altar”, 1431], le voyage par mer de la sainte se rendant à Marseille. (p.23)

Adhémar, 1962

Le Musée national du Louvre, Paris

#12

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

Brans [Brans, 1948, 43-44, 72] rappelle aussi ces sources et voit dans de nombreuses oeuvres de Bosch une violente critique du clergé. (p.24)

Adhe_mar, 1962

Le Muse_e national du Louvre, Paris

#129

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

Met de Kruisdraging te Weenen is de ,,Blauwe Schuit” in het Louvre verwant, wat formaat, techniek en typeering betreft. Het motief van het schip der dwaasheid, dat naar het onzekere drijft, was uit devroegere didactische literatuur bekend (b.v. Die blauwe Schute van Jacob van Oestvoren, 1413). (p. 16)

Vermeylen, 1939

Hieronymus Bosch

#140

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

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

Hieronymus Bosch

#144

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

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

de Tolnay, 1965

Hieronymus Bosch

#147

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

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

#268

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

Plusieurs lourds ornements dont est chargée la barque, feraient chavirer un esquif de cette espèce si, au lieu d’être peinte sur un panneau de bois, elle se fût trouvée égarée sur les flots, eût-elle été gouvernée par un véritable pilote. (p. 2)

de Boschère, 1947

Jérôme Bosch

#272

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

Si lepanneauavait la propriété d’émettre des sons, entendrionsnous des cris désordonnés, apanage d’une telle societe ? Sauf nos quatre bouches ouvertes, rien ne fait supposer que soit rompu le triste silence. Bosch a-t-il voulu nous faire entendre que, entre deux bouchees arrachées a la tarte, ces bouches chanteraient avec accoinpagnement de guitare ? L’une des figures lève haut la main comme pour-accueillir d’autres fous, mais, comme il s’agit de I’un de ceux qui convoitent la tarte, de sa bouche ouverte ne sortiront peut-etre que de sottes revendications. C’est encore la tarte suspendue comme un appat qui distrait le seul de tous ces nautes eberlues qui se soit inquiete de la navigation. Une palette de boulanger, dans ses mains, a d’abord servi de rame. II la laisse maintenant trainer dans I’eau sombre, humiliee de porter cette potee d’ignorants qui bafouent la poesie des flots. Les seuls de ces desequilibres dont on atten-, dait des cris, se disputent en silence. Les levres trop serrees meme pour que s’en echappe un murmure, une femme menace d’une enorme cniche de gres un lourdaud, accroupi, qui projetait de s’attaquer a une grosse fiasque de gervoise, boisson de I’epoque, ou de vin, moins probablement. La bouteille trempe dans I’onde que l’on suppose fralche, malgrd la fievre bouillante qui s’agite dans I’esquif voguant à la déive. (p. 3)

de Boschère, 1947

Jérôme Bosch

#273

Stick with upturned jug from Ship of Fools

Une autre cruche, mbntee sur un bâton, est I’enseigne de ce navire perdu. (p. 3)

de Boschère, 1947

Jérôme Bosch

#394

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

The fool – unconcerned about important things and occupied only with what is worthless – has no goal, just as the ship of fools has no destination, other than ruin or aimlessness. Bosch’s Ship of Fools is similarly adrift, ‘without cares, reason, wisdom or sense’, while elsewhere the artist frequently used the motif of a sinking ship, with or without a broken mast. (p. 145)

Koldeweij, Vandenbroeck & Vermet, 2001

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#395

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

Bosch visually represented several aspects of this image of wisdom – the sinner/fool as impulsive and governed by ‘nature’… totally adrift, rudderless and aimless (Ship of Fools, prints of the Blue Ship [van der Heyden, 1559] and Merrymakers Sailing in a Mussel Shell [van der Heyden, 1562]). (p. 145)

Koldeweij, Vandenbroeck & Vermet, 2001

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#523

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

Like the ship, the entire picture is afloat in a liquid element It is hard to say if this unseaworthy vessel drifts in a shallow inlet or on the open sea, though that uncertainty may only be due to the much-obliterated state of the color in the background. (p. 66)

Linfert, 1989

Hieronymus Bosch

#527

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

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

Hieronymus Bosch

#535

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

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)

Cinotti, 1966

The complete paintings of Bosch

#659

Tree mast with owl from Ship of Fools

The rudderless and unstable quality of Bosch’s Ship of Fools becomes all the more obvious when we try to make out how the vessel is constructed; the mast is held up by two stays, the right one of which is tied to the tree-branch on which the fool is sitting. The branch appears in turn to have been placed loosely in the boat. It is also unclear which way the boat is travelling; it seems to be sailing into the wind, as the bow is painted on the right and the pennant is blowing to the left. The vessel is not, therefore, making any headway; to emphasize the absurdity of the situation, one of the crew grips a large spoon as a rudder (or is it an oar?), but does so at the bow end [Marijnissen, 1987, 311]. We also wonder, lastly, how much longer it will be before the swell causes the tabletop with the plate, the cherries and the cup to tip over, and the fool bobbing along on a barrel in the foreground to slide off into the water. (p. 326)

Ilsink et al., 2016

Hieronymus Bosch. Painter and Draughtsman

#663

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

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

Ilsink et al., 2016

Hieronymus Bosch. Painter and Draughtsman

#731

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

In der Zeit der Erweiterung des Horizonts mittels seetüchtiger Schiffe(Entdeckung Amerikas) [Wilhelm, 1990, 241:no. 589; Brant, 1494, 66:v. 53-56;] rüsteten Brant und Bosch ihre Flotte der «Narrenschiffe» auf. Erst durch den Zusammenhang mit den «Faulen» bekommendiese leichten Gefährte der «Narrenschiffe» ihren eigentlichen Tiefgang. Hinter dieser Satire wird ein Begriff des Menschen sichtbar, der das «leichte Lebern» der Müßiggänger nicht als Schicksal begreift, sondern in den Zusammenhang von Arbeit und Leistung stellt [Heimann, 1990]. Auf dem Weg zurmodernen Leistungsgesellschaft wollten sich die Frühhumanisten und (Vor-)Reformatoren von den Müßiggängern (falschen Bettlern, unkeuschen Beginen, faulen Studenten usw.) trennen, deren Glück als «zu leicht» empfunden wurde. Die Ausgangsfrage «Wie kommt der Narr aufs Schiff?» ist damit beantwortbar, denn der Narr bildet gleichsam den Hiatus zwischen «Otium» und «Negotium» (Müßiggang und Handel). Eine aktive Gesellschaftmarginalisierte ihre sich treiben lassenden, vagabundierenden«Nichtsnutze», setzte sie (literarisch) auf die «Narrenschiffe der Müßiggängern(«naves pereuntis») [Kasten, 1992]. Dabei sollte jedoch nicht vergessen werden, daßdie Vorreformatoren die Habgier genauso kritisierten wie den Müßiggang;Gewinn sollte nicht von gemeinschaftlichen Verpflichtungen und von Gottlosgelöst sein. (pp.168-169)

Hartau, 2002

“Narrenschiffe” um 1500