Iconology of the Wayfarer Triptych

#87

Pennant with cresent symbol from Ship of Fools

The element connecting The Ship of Fools with the representation of the carrus navalis in the Schönbartbuch is the sign of the moon, he moon, but so far the moon, on which both the theme and form of the painting are based, has been interpreted only superficially as a sign of disbelief and Satan [Adhémar, 1962, 21; Delevoy, 1960, 31; Cuttler, 1969, 274.]… (p.47)

Boczkowska, 1971

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

#88

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

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)

Boczkowska, 1971

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

#89

Tree mast with owl from Ship of Fools

Bosch’s boat has a tree for a mast and the symbolism of this, too, can only be understood when it is related to lunar symbolism, since a tree is one of the moon’s permanent attributes, signifying its influence over the plant world. For, according to Arabic and Greek astrology, it was the moon that directed the growth, blossoming, ripening and withering of plants [Hildegarde, 1903, 79; Nielsen, 1904, 104; Briffault, 1927, 2, 589; Saintyves, 1937, 230 ff.; Bidez & Cumont, 1938, 2, 189, 227, 302 ff; Eliade, 1959, 158] . (p.57)

Boczkowska, 1971

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

#90

Tree mast with owl from Ship of Fools

A tree was the basic form in which the Arabian moon goddess, Al-Uzza, was worshipped in Mecca, all Semitic divinities being connected with trees and sacred shrubs. On certain Babylonian seals the identification of the moon with a tree was represented in a realistic and yet, at the same time, surrealistic way, often by a boat or cart either decorated with branches or with a tree standing upright in the centre. Conversely, the moon god was thought of as a tree-trunk with a crescent moon [Briffault, 1927, 630f]. The lunar boat with a tree standing in its centre also crops up in illustrations on Egyptian papyruses, in primitive Oceanic art and in Africa [Bayley, 1919, 2, 309, 314, fig. 1287; Tallqvist, 1948, 81, fig. 52; Lurker, 1960, 32; Engler, 1962, 171f, figs.. 333a, 335]. In Crete and Greece, too, moon deities were worshipped and represented in the form of a tree [Briffault, 1927, 630]. (pp.57-58)

Boczkowska, 1971

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

#91

Tree mast with owl from Ship of Fools

… Bosch’s representation of a boat with a tree belongs to the well-defined group of traditional lunar representations signifying the cosmic function of the moon, it cannot be classed with those works which are simply concerned with depicting popular celebrations connected with the spring new moon. It lacks the free decorative character which marks the illustrations by contemporary miniaturists in Netherlandish calendars, for, in contrast to these, the symbolism of boat and tree is here absolutely central to the composition. In this respect it finds analogies in two compositions of the second half of the 15th century. One of these is a wood-engraving made, in commemoration of the tragic death of Mary of Burgundy, the wife of Maximilian I, by the Master of the Year 1464, also called the Master of the Banderoles, who was working at the same time as Bosch [Willshire, 1883, 2, 153; Hollstein, 1949, 12, 43; Benesch, 1937, 261]. The other is a drawing with exactly the same iconography in the Erbauungsbuch of Wilhelm Werner Graf von Simmern [Willshire, 1883, 153; Fraenger, 1930, 103]. Both these works depict a moralizing metaphor of human life in the context of late medieval ideas about the transience of universal matter. The metaphor takes the form of a tree in a boat, with representatives of the state depicted amongst the foliage and two mice, symbolizing day and night, gnawing at its trunk. The boat is approaching a bank on which stands the figure of Death aiming with his bow at the people in the tree. Behind Death lies a dead man in an open grave. The source of this symbolic composition is a 7th-century legend about St. Barlaam and King Josaphat, which was originally written in Greek and then translated into Latin and enjoyed great popularity during the late medieval period [Didron, 1855, 415]. It is bound up with the secular iconography of the tree of life which symbolizes the human body in its physiological impermanence and the course of human life…[Schmitt, 1948, col. 74; Cirlot, 1962, 329; Kozàky, 1944, 109, 156, 160, 168] (pp. 58-59)

Boczkowska, 1971

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

#93

Pennant with cresent symbol from Ship of Fools

…the moon which appears as the attribute of the tree of life in The Ship of Fools is a symbol of the curriculum vitae. It signifies the material sublunar existence of man, subject to the laws of nature and the drift towards death. The moon was, indeed, used as a symbol of death in secular European art at various other periods apart from the Middle Ages [Cumont, 1942, 182ff.; Kozàky, 171; Eliade, 1959, 155]. (p.61)

Boczkowska, 1971

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

#100

Jester from Ship of Fools

The dominating figure in Bosch’s boatload of phlegmatics is the jester sitting on the withered branch, drinking from a bowl, and it is this figure, linked with the lunar symbolism, that gives the work its decidedly moralizing meaning. In the 15th and 16th centuries the jester was represented at the feet of the so-called anatomical man, for he signified a wandering mind and was subject to the influence of the moon as the planet which provokes mental illness [Saintyves, 1937, 139, 151, 189; Lacombe, 1963, Pls. 18, 22, 42]… It is thus no mere accident that Bosch’s jester, the symbol of lunar folly, is a hunchback. Jesters were also represented in illustrations of the phlegmatic temperament, for, according to traditions reaching back to Hippocrates, phlegma was the source of mental deficiency [Hildegarde, 1903, 74; O’Brien-Moore, 1924, 26; Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, 1964, fig 90b] (p.64)

Boczkowska, 1971

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

#101

Jester from Ship of Fools

The jester-fool was the type of the sinner who was subject not to the direction of the spirit but to sublunar matter, which the moon dispensed with its characteristic inconstancy [Swain, 1932, passim]… The moon is always interpreted as meaning human nature and the sun, the source of light, signifies God [Erasmus, 1828]. Thus in medieval literature the basic characteristics of stupidity were recognized as being derived from the inconstancy of the moon. Bosch has represented them in his lunar boat full of phlegmatics by the figure of a jester… The fool’s boat, in which the dominating figure of the jester symbolizes the folly derived from the moon as the source of sin and death. (pp.65-66)

Boczkowska, 1971

The Lunar Symbolism of The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

#410

Pennant with cresent symbol from Ship of Fools

Een groote wimpel wappert van den mast, waarop een liggend halvemaantje, het „schuitje van de maan, is geschilderd. (p. 29)

de Haas, 1942

De ommegang met het wagenschip

#637

Vaulted ceiling from Death and the Miser

This geometric construction is grounded in sciences more exalted than the late Gothic theory of perspective. The two sets of fourteen parallel axes involve the same divinely perfect numbers, four times seven, through which, according to the speculation of Philo of Alexandria already quoted, the moon returns again and again to fullness in a cycle of four-times-seven days. And indeed at the heart of that dark recess to which the four-section vault leads is a disk, symbol of the full moon, marking the transition from earthly transitoriness to eternity. The use of Philo’s law of numbers to express the Mosaic “as long as the earth remaineth” [English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Genesis, 8:22] gives evidence that Jacob van Almaengien commissioned and designed the program for The Hour of Death, which once served as a didactic painting for meditational use but never was what it has hitherto been assumed to be: the left panel of a medium-size triptych. (p. 300)

Fraenger, 1999

Hieronymus Bosch

#767

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

Boczkowska’s identification of “children of the moon” in both paintings takes on a new dimension as we remark the various effects of the phlegmatic temperament [Morganstern, 1984, 300: note 31; Boczkowska, 1971, 47-69, 61-65; Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, 1964, 127-133, 397]. (p.300)

Morganstern, 1984

The Rest of Bosch’s Ship of Fools

#768

Boat with ten people onboard from Ship of Fools

The association of the phlegmatic temperament with the moon is part of the ancient belief that the planets ruled the humours [Boczkowska, 1971, 47-69, 61-65; Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, 1964, 127-133, 397]. (p. 300: note 31)

Morganstern, 1984

The Rest of Bosch’s Ship of Fools