24. THE BEACHED FISH
In the foreground in the centre (see Fig. 87 and Plate H) a fish is swimming in the waste water. It has been steered out of its true element. This is the already familiar picture of the Christian church, and Bosch shows what he felt to be lacking in this church in his time. The fish -- ichthys, gasping for air is largely covered by a red cardinal's cloak, armoured and equipped with signs of war-like power. A sword hangs from its side; the round symbol of the earth, which we met round the neck of the heron in the group discussed above, and which can also be seen in the Mars ship in mid-air above on the right, can be found again on the shield on its back. The fish has other characteristics of a warship: in the times of Bosch the Popes had temporal power and their own earthly domain; they made war, politics, and intrigued, like all other rulers. An old witch is steering the figure by means of a wooden cooking-spoon; a totally black figure beside her is fishing.
Fig. 87. HIERONYMUS BOSCH: Fish and the duck ship of education (detail from The Temptations of St. Anthony).
The Roman church was steering towards the winning of bread, i.e. the acquisition of earthly possessions in the widest sense. One need only think of the innumerable institutions of the church which were constantly fishing for worldly goods. The mast of the fish-ship has been erected upon the iron armour of external power, and its stay-rope has been fastened to the red of the cardinal's cloak. In this picture Bosch wants to indicate the condition of the administration of the church in his time.
25. THE DUCK-SHIP: THE EDUCATION OF MANKIND
A shrivelled-up schoolmaster has hidden himself in a vessel which has the shape of a hollow drake (see Fig. 87 and Plate H). It has already been seen that the drake is the symbol of active education. The figure is pulling a tiny skiff on a rope, in which a young pupil is sitting who is tearing the hair from his head in misery and anger. A holy white stork that has been plucked is grinning at him, i.e. what is sacred, beautiful and true is in reality withheld from him and only arid rules, dead formulae and empty words have become his portion in education. It looks as though it is the schoolmaster who is paddling on the figure of education with his hands. But in reality a black woman, who carries a cage on her back is steering it; she is in fact holding the rope. The cage, also found in the picture of The Prodigal Son, is the symbol of being imprisoned. Within it there is imprisoned a small ape, the symbol for the stunted physical body of the young pupil who still wants to play. This shows what the poor children feel if they are forced to direct their souls which are longing to learn, towards dead subjects offered in the form of dull rigid ideas. The dark old hag camouflaged under an innocent red mantle keeps the whole in motion by means of a rope; a ray, the symbol of fear, serves as both sail and banner for the ship. This was how Bosch experienced education even then. The wooden spoon is missing; in those times, schoolmasters were badly paid. We discuss what is written on the roll of parchment which is lying before the schoolmaster in Note 19. Note 2 The Prodigal Son and Note 17 St. Anthony mention more about the tradition which unites schoolmaster and duck. For an historical comment on the spectacles worn by the schoolmaster see Note 18.
26. MATERIALISM AND THE IMPULSE OF CHRIST
We have seen how Anthony, behind whom Bosch conceals himself, has demonstrated the state of the Christian church (the fish) and of the education of the young human race (the drake). Above this last group the main aspects of the living together of people in middle Europe are shown by Bosch, in the distorted figure of Mary with the child and Joseph on the flight into Egypt, surrounded by the three kings (see Fig. 88 and Plate H). Seen superficially this appears to be blasphemous; but in reality it is a spiritual vision, in which the positive element has, as is Bosch's wont, been painted small and inconspicuously.
Fig. 88. HIERONYMUS BOSCH: Materialism and the Christ impulse (see Plate H) (detail, The Temptations of St. Anthony).
Mother and Child
This reference to the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt expresses that personified wisdom had to flee to the darkness of Egypt. The name Egypt, literally translated, means black earth, which can also be called dark matter. In Egypt the philosophy arose which finally led to the worship of matter; the idea of preserving corpses from decay by embalming them points to the beginning of materialism. As is described in the Gospel of St. Matthew, Joseph, a descendant of the wise King Solomon led the child of Wisdom and his mother out of the power of Herod and was forced to seek shelter in Egypt for a time [xii].
What was it Bosch intended to demonstrate in his rigidified mother and the mummified child? Before this question can be answered and the picture described, something else must be considered that will help us to grasp and understand the painter's conception.
In ancient times Maria-Sophia was regarded as the personification of cosmic wisdom (the name Sophia means wisdom, and the cathedral in Constantinople that was named Hagia Sophia was dedicated to Divine Wisdom). The wisdom of the stars is the bread of heaven; therefore the Mother of God is pictured either in a cloak full of stars or of ears of corn according to whether it is desired to portray her light-bringing or her nourishing aspect. In those old times the wisdom of the stars kindled in man a form of knowledge which was not then intellectual, but which has since been transformed and developed into modern intellectual knowledge. This knowledge became the "alma mater" -- bounteous mother -- of the Universities, and natural science and technology are the fruits of this materialistic world philosophy. Man has gradually learned to control the world of matter.
Bosch has painted the representation of the rigidified virgin of the stars and her wasted child, materialism. The witchlike mother is holding the infant on her lap with one wooden hand; both sit in a split tree-trunk -- the image of superstition -- which expresses the view that materialism is madness before God or superstition. The snake's tail with which this false Sophia is furnished is the same which completes the snake-form of Lucifer. This image of superstition, the wooden mother, is borne in the waste water by a giant mouse -- but she herself does not guide her mount. The mouse has already been described as the symbol of grey everyday occurrences [65] and it is easy to grasp that Bosch here indicates that this form of knowledge cannot lead to wisdom, but allows itself to be diverted by a multitude of everyday needs, and thus can only serve a technology that aims to relieve all these needs.
The figure of Joseph
Joseph, who according to the Gospel of St. Matthew harkened to the voice of his angel also stands here in the background. Unlike the other figures that surround him he is no caricature because now, as then, there are men -- though only in the background -- who are guarded by a great shield from the tumult of the world. He represents a group of men who listen to the word of the Spirit.
THE THREE KINGS
These three caricatures of kings bring no gifts, but are representatives of the egotistic forces of personality which exist in society. It seems to us justifiable to draw a comparison between the true three kings of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and the three estates of the realm in the 15th and 16th centuries. At the beginning of the first century the representatives of the archetypal capacities of the human soul, thinking, feeling, and will, brought the fruits of their activities in the form of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the Divine Child. In Bosch's times the three estates -- the clergy or, according to Socrates the philosophers, the aristocracy, and the third estate, the bourgeoisie, were supposed to bring their gifts to the world. These three estates were held rigidly apart in the Middle Ages. The spiritual leaders were supposed to cultivate the spiritual life, the aristocracy to foster justice, and the bourgeoisie the economic life.
To the left of the group there is painted a knight who is setting forth to hunt with a falcon, and carries a hunting horn. He is spurred, and sits on a creature that is half horse, half jar, and he is wearing a large shield against his knee. He is a representation of the second estate of the Middle Ages, the spiritual leaders, or its spiritual life. That is no falcon on his left hand, but a mockingbird, a symbol through which Bosch has already expressed so much in other places. This has already been explained and the meaning of the mockingbird here can be taken as read. The jar which forms the rear half of the horse on which the king is mounted is painted directly below the emblem of mockery. As it is the image standing for the container of the forces of the soul this jar should be standing upright, but here it is horizontal, causing at least half of the soul content to be wasted. This rear half of the mount can also be seen in connection with the stupid cow on the left inner wing. Stupidity also leaves everything to take its course.
The king has the wings of a jay instead of arms. The jay, as a symbol, is to be found several times on the central panel of The Garden of Heavenly Delights (see Prodigal Son Note 2) [65] (p. 94). It is the representation of Luciferic forces which can tempt man to fanatical enthusiasms that take his attention away from the real needs of the earth [xiii]. This king in a beautiful robe of feathers bears a pseudo-wisdom which will not help him to action. His head is a thistle. This straw-like plant, which grows on poor soil, belongs with the symbol of the jay, as is also the case on the central panel of the Hortus Deliciarum. Here too this flower expresses that only Satanic ideas grow on such bad soil. The red cap with flame-like decoration again indicates the Luciferic nature of this king. The armour, spurs and shield are the signs of his desire to exercise power on earth.
The king on the far right, who represents the aristocracy, has few attributes. The heron, symbol of death, looks forth from his vizor. This probably means that the aristocracy had become more and more an empty shell. The originally self-perpetuating race of the aristocracy, which relied upon the blood tie, had the task of guarding the land and its people, and of exercising all other judicial rights within the state to keep the balance between the two other estates. Only the outer form, the suit of armour, has remained in this figure.
The king in the middle looks like a well-to-do burgher of the Burgundian time: proudly he sits on his horse, in flamboyant dress; imitating the aristocracy he gazes haughtily about him. A plant-like object, which is in fact the sign of a florin, sits on top of an apple on his head. This man represents the third estate -- the bourgeoisie. Because the sign of money is hovering above his head, the merchant, who is growing rich and powerful, bears the fruit of the fall of man in his head; for Bosch always paints above people's heads what is going on inside them. The urge to earn money is indicated by the sign of the guilder or florin.
The Child in the Water
Right in front of this large group a small unobtrusive child is standing erect in the water. Neither his arms nor legs can be seen. The small body's chest protrudes like a dove's; on his head stands a small bowl containing food, in which there is a spoon. This child has a remarkably beautiful and serious face, the same that Bosch has painted on a picture now in Vienna, which is justly entitled The Playing Jesus Child (see Fig. 89). This key theme immediately elevates all that is negative in the large group from the sphere of mere criticism to a mighty statement of the recognition of all that is lacking in society, and at the same time gives an indication for a possible positive future. For that which descended in the form of a dove upon Jesus at the Baptism in Jordan, is symbolised here in the child with the bowl of gruel on his head standing in the waste water. Note again that the significant thoughts in a man's head are painted above it.
Fig. 89. HIERONYMUS BOSCH: The playing Jesus Child. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum (reverse side of Fig. 48).
Goethe wrote "we see the Master in his economy". Bosch once again shows himself to be a master-painter. In the fewest possible brushstrokes he shows that in the child -- the principle of the Son -- there were prepared the forces not only of spiritual nourishment (gruel) but also the creative forces (the spoon as emblem of creativity) and that He who said "I am the bread of life" has made man free to make use of these forces. The child in the waste water has neither arms nor legs, by which Bosch would say that this child would be taken up and carried, as Christophorus lifted and carried Him, thus bearing the heaviest of all burdens across the water onto solid land. Bosch has painted Christophorus; the picture hangs in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
If humanity does not deny its true nature, when there are more bearers of the Christ who will raise the child up out of the water, then there will be a possibility that all the other figures will be transformed into positive ones. Then the infant of materialism can be released from its swaddling bands, and knowledge of matter, which has previously overwhelmed everything else, can become changed into a force that serves. The other child, in the group that is a commentary on education, which is in a vertical line below the other two children, will then no longer despair, but will receive an education that is worthy of the human being. The three kings will be metamorphosed into kings who truly lead and who can improve the social life of man; only then will all men become brothers.
27. THE FALSE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE
On the left, beside the platform and immediately next to the group that has just been discussed, there are three fellows standing in the waste-water; one is dressed as a priest and has a human form but the head of a pig -- he is pointing to a particular place in an open book; the second is a badger/long-tailed monkey figure with a reversed funnel on his head; the third is a cloaked figure in which a heron is hidden; it has a nest and an egg on its head (see Fig. 90 and Plate H). The typical signs of the powers that are working against man's thinking, feeling and will have been discussed previously [65] as they appear on a round painting by Bosch (Fig. 91, Note 20). Suffice it here to say that the first devil attacks the head, the seat of thinking, the second the heart, the seat of feeling, and the third the limbs, the seat of the will. If one would call the three powers of opposition by their old names they would be Ahriman, Lucifer, and Assurias. Here, standing in the waste water to the right of the platform a man is painted with two demons behind him; the signs of the three opposing powers are used in these three figures. The man, who is dressed as a priest, has the head of a pig. The pig is known to be very intelligent if it wishes to gratify its instinctual desires. This priest can think cleverly, like the pig, about what he is reading. He is provoked by the false and selfish badger/long-tailed monkey behind him. This luciferic demon has a reversed funnel on his head; thus he is shielded from the rain of ideas which can descend from heaven. In the background there stands a concealed heron, in other words, death. He bears a nest with one egg in it on his head. From this it can be deduced that once again a germ is hinted at, which still needs to be brooded upon and hatched, as has already been described in section 6 Anthony. The egg-germ, the tendency to materialistic, dead thinking, rests upon the head of the heron. The heron (death) and the spoonbill (Ahriman) are akin, and here there is a figure representing dead thinking with that germ "in" its head, which will later manifest as materialism. All this must be seen in relation to that which appears through the rent in the priest's robe, the skeleton (death) and blood (desire). The book bearing a seal from which the priest is reading is probably the Apocalypse of St. John, or Holy Writ in general. If all this is correct Bosch, in this detail, wished to put before us a representation of the fact that the holy books are often falsely interpreted by scoundrels.
Fig. 90. HIERONYMUS BOSCH: The three fellows in the waste water (detail, The Temptations of St. Anthony).
Fig. 91. HIERONYMUS BOSCH; The three opposing forces attacking man. Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van-Beuningen.
28. FALSE PROPHECIES
The complementary figure to the group discussed above is the figure of a man with a top hat and well groomed beard. He also appears on the central panel of The Hay Wain triptych. Here a cloth is spread out before him on which is drawn a severed foot; a fetter lies beside it. (See Plate G and Plate I). There is a picture from the studio of Bosch, in private ownership (see Note 19), which only consists of the central panel of The Temptations of St. Anthony. On this the content of this section is more clearly shown (see Fig. 92). Here the little man can be seen to be surrounded by several Signs of the Zodiac, and his significance becomes plainer: he is one of the magicians and astrologers who wandered about the land. His horoscopes and prophecies, which declare a man's destiny to be completely fixed and laid down, take from the individual a portion of his liberty. This is shown by the severed foot and the fetter. In the purgatorium of The Garden of Heavenly Delights this severed foot can also be found beside the writing demon, and has the same meaning. Bosch, who it is clear from the Hortus Deliciarum [xiv], was familiar with the Zodiac and planets must have hated the swindlers who degraded true astrology to a worthless game, as frequently happens today with the signs of the constellations of the Zodiac. Here again the nest with its egg is present, for here too the demon of the death of the soul has sowed his seed, like a wasp burrowing in a maggot to lay her egg in it. The two pictures can be regarded as the dogmatic and false explanation of the Bible on one side (right) and occult superstition on the other (left) (Fig. 92).
Fig. 92. HIERONYMUS BOSCH: Detail from appointing in private ownership. The magician or trickster and astrologer, surrounded by the Signs of the Zodiac, a shackle to the right and a severed foot (not visible in this picture -- see Fig. 143)·
29. THE PICTURE OF THE INQUISITION
Once Bosch has shown in the lower section of the picture how man developed, and how church, education and state are developing, we can now learn to recognise the political situation of those times as seen by Anthony (Fig. 93 and Plate I). It needs to be re-emphasized that Bosch conceals himself in the character of Anthony, and in this way wishes to make his views clear without risking his life.
Fig. 93. HIERONYMUS BOSCH: Picture of the Inquisition (see Plate I) (detail, The Temptations of St. Anthony).
A curious procession is advancing from the left; an armoured man of violence within a withered and rotting tree, who holds in his mailed fist a curious creature, which combines within it the traces of several heraldic beasts. In his left hand he holds a thorny cane, from the same arm a bow is hanging and on the tree above is the huntsman's hat. Before him are his dogs. Who is the quarry of this hunt? The Inquisition were mostly chosen from the Dominican Order. They were always sent forth in pairs as spies, and as has already been said, they were called the hounds of the Lord -- domini canes. This pair of hounds shows what is the nature of the power that is advancing on shoes made of bones -- it is the Inquisition. Various noble houses had identified themselves with the Inquisition of the Popes, for their mutual support. Inquisition and battles over inheritance went hand in hand. Thus the creature that is walking beside the violent man could be called the "heraldic animal". The dreadful servants follow in the train of this dual power.
Firstly there is cruelty with its disgusting aspect. The executioner with his instruments of torture as an emblem on his shoulder, and a broken jug as a cover for his head. The vessel of the soul is broken, the flowers in it are the same as those on the cult table in the centre, and show what flowers grow from such cults. Consistent with this there are the shrike and heron painted on the torture wheel, as symbols of death. Beside Cruelty stands the nightjar knight, with a huge dead pig. This symbol is familiar. When men come together in large numbers they easily get beside themselves. If they are provoked they carry out shameful deeds, of which they would never have been capable as individuals (e.g. a lynching). At such a time they are not properly awake, and act as if in a dream. They think that they have slain what is evil (the pig) in their fellow man. In truth they bear the forces of the pig in and about themselves. Here the theme of the right outer panel recurs. (In explanation of the executed pig we note that at that time animals were still executed in the same way as criminals.)
30. FIRE AND DESTRUCTION
The fire that is painted above the group that has just been described shows clearly the havoc wrought on the land by the Inquisition and wars of inheritance and their consequences (see Fig. 94, Fig. 100 and Plate I).
Fig. 94. HIERONYMUS BOSCH: Fire and destruction (detail, The Temptations of St. Anthony).
In the realm of the spirit (in mid-air) Diabolos is riding on the fish of pseudo-Christianity; the devil has flown off with the ladder i.e. with the possibility of mounting higher; the apocalyptic horsemen appear, fire bolts are shooting downwards; the "winged egg", that new beginning which is still floating in the air and would make a way for itself after the catastrophe, is straddled by a frog-like creature (see Note 9 and Fig. 98). This can also be seen on the left inner wing, on the left in the air, while in Fig. 99 too, the toad appears, as the first being to meet the one who has died.
In the foreground of the landscape an army is seen, in the act of withdrawing, having previously set a whole village on fire. A farmstead, with its barn and all that belongs to it stands quite undamaged, separated from the burning village only by a narrow canal; the inhabitants can be seen to carry on a normal life, quite unconcerned about the destruction of the neighbouring village. A woman is even standing in the doorway gossiping with a man who is tranquilly sitting on a bench; no one looks at the fire. This is a striking illustration of the lack of sympathy of people for the sufferings of others.
Only a narrow strip of water divides tranquillity and the most terrible catastrophe (perhaps this portrays differing political views). The paintings are not discussed in this book from the point of view of their technical accomplishments, but it must be pointed out how perfectly the landscape is rendered from an artistic point of view. Bosch's reproductions of nature and symbols are perfect in their artistic execution.