Bosch, The Fool's Ship, circa 1494
Around the 1690s, when Europeans were just emerging from the shadow of the Middle Ages, Bosch painted The Fool's Ship.
This ship of fools is full of fools who are not fools, but fools who are clever and mistaken by cleverness. Priests, charlatans, aristocratic gentlemen, all types of fools singing, drinking, gluttony, playing, playing, immersed in indulgence, completely disregarding the fact that the boat is about to sink.
By this time, the early masters of the Italian Renaissance were already singing the glory of humanity and praising the new world freed from oppression, such as Botticelli's painting of The Birth of Venus and Spring, which were full of humanistic optimism; Francesca's completion of the light-hearted "Baptism of Christ" and "The Legend of the Holy Cross".
Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, 1484-1486
But Bosch, in Holland, is not optimistic about what is in front of him: the boat in "The Fool's Ship" has no rudder and no sails, and it carries a ship of Fools and a rootless tree in a hopeless water like a swamp.
"The Fool's Ship" is originally the upper part of the left baffle of a triptych, and the lower part is the "Allegory of Gluttony", which shows people's desire to eat.
Bosch, The Fables of Greed, circa 1494
The picture shares a piece of water with "Fool's Boat", and there are branches in the place where they echo. Among them, a barrel floats on the water, and several drunkards who leave their clothes on the shore are playing with their ideas: one drunkard is splashing wine through the small hole in the barrel, and the next three drunkards are thinking about how to open the barrel. The man sitting on the barrel was probably well fed and drunk, and was knightly, blowing the trumpet gracefully. In the cabin on the shore, a pair of men and women representing lust are tasting good wine.
The central picture of the triptych in which the two works are located represents a wedding scene, that is, the painting was created to celebrate the new marriage. However, this combination is not surprising, bosch is a warning to newlyweds, in times of joy, but also to be wary of the dangers of ignorance and indulgence.
Possible triptych restoration
In another work, Healing Madness, in addition to the obvious madness, Bosch also shows human ignorance and deception. Among them, the real madness is not the patient, but the treatment of the patient, as Foucault said in "Madness and Civilization": "Bosch's famous doctor is more crazy than the patient, and his false medical skills can only reveal to people other than him how bad the madness can be." The comical hat worn by the charlatan seems to reveal the nature of his liar, while the woman with the book on her head is a satire of ignorance.
Bosch, Healing Madness partial, after 1481
Of course, no work is more straightforward in its revelation of human sin than The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Deadly Things. The Seven Deadly Sins are categories of human sins in Catholic doctrine, in order of severity: arrogance, jealousy, anger, laziness, greed, gluttony, and lust. In this work, Bosch arranges the various sins of mankind in a disk similar to the eyeball, and the middle pupil is the image of Christ on the cross, as if to warn mankind that God knows everything and that sin has nowhere to hide. The four surrounding paintings represent the four stages that a person goes through when he dies: the death of sin, the final judgment, hell, and heaven.
In addition, there are two floating titles in the picture, which are excerpted from the Bible And Deuteronomy: "Human beings are stupid and unscrupulous. Heaven has given them wisdom, they will understand, they will take on the last thing. "God said: I let them not see my face, I will see their ultimate fate". These are admonitions to the world.
Bosch, The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Deadly Things, 1505-1510
Part of The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Matters of The Last Death. Men who fight exhibit the crime of "anger," a crime that is widespread in war and personal vendettas
Part of The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Matters of The Last Death. The hedonistic men and women showed the sin of "lust", and the clown next to them mockingly exposed his ass
Part of The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Matters of The Last Death. The person who is looking in the mirror shows the sin of "arrogance", in which the person who holds up the mirror is a demon
Bosch's famous triptychs, Hay Truck and Garden of Happiness, are even more stark exposés of human crimes. Among them, "Hay Cart" is inspired by an old folk proverb: "The world is like a hay cart, and everyone tries to take advantage of it as much as possible." In the center of the triptych, crowding, looting, killing, and deception are staged around huge haystacks. Above the haystacks, an idyllic scene is represented: Eros, the god of love, plays the flute, angels pray next to it, and people play the piano and sing under the trees. However, when people have finished snatching the hay from the hay truck, this beautiful vision is gone.
Bosch, Triptych of Hay Carts, 1515-1516
Part of the triptych of "Hay Cart". Even devout priests and nuns were scrambling. They packed large sums of hay into bags, as if they were the only precious treasure
Part of the triptych of "Hay Cart". With hay, life will be fine. It can roast suckling pigs to eat and can raise young children. That's why people compete for hay, because it represents both money and power
The Garden of Happiness triptych is Bosch's most famous work and one of the most mysterious paintings in the world, with three parts depicting heaven, earth and hell. However, human sin does not only occur in hell scenes, but also in heaven and on earth. The scene in the Garden of Eden on the left looks like the wind and the sun, but in the foreground of the picture, there are already dangerous elements: all kinds of strange creatures crawl out of the pool, and hunting and killing have begun. The central picture shows the desires of the world: naked people riding on birds and beasts, living in huge berries, frolicking in rivers and lakes, stealing love in mussel shells and flower bones. The hell scene shows the punishment for mankind: someone has been stabbed through the palm of his hand for gambling; the hunter has been recaptured by the animal; the indulgent person has been given the fate of "lover turning into a sow", while in the distance, the fire of hell is still spreading...
Bosch, Triptych of The Garden of Happiness, circa 1503
Paradise of the Garden of Happiness, partial. The foreground has begun to kill, and the little water monster reading a book in the lower right corner is quite interesting
The garden of happiness is a human, partial, person who lives in plants and flirts with flowers and bones
The hell of the Garden of Happiness, partial, the people punished by gambling
The hell of the Garden of Happiness, the part, the person who makes love to the sow dressed as a nun
More than 500 years later, those of us who believe in evolution look back at Bosch's paintings and realize that human beings have not actually changed at all. This foolish ship, full of human beings with all kinds of desires, continues to move forward...
Read Recommended
Author: Marco Bussali
Translator: Wang Jianquan
Publisher: Oriental Publishing House
Hieronimus Bosch was a Dutch painter from the late Middle Ages to the early Renaissance. He pioneered a new style of painting that was not only highly original and imaginative, but also used a large number of symbols. His work breaks through the religious atmosphere of piety and solemnity in the Nordic painting tradition, while showing the progressive humanist stance of the Renaissance.
The book is divided into two parts. The first part is the main text, including bosch's life, the reasons for the emergence of his masterpieces and the background of the times, and bosch's influence on later artists. Among them, regarding Bosch's life, the author analyzes the social background of his life era, the family situation of the artistic family, the married life after growing up, the process of emerging in the painting world, and the influencing factors of the gradual maturity of his painting style. The second part is the interpretation of his work. The author selects the details of each masterpiece to more intuitively display and narrate the rich and symbolic content of Bosch's paintings.