DIES IRAE, DIES ILLA [534]

"The Temptation of St Anthony"

Once I was finally able to stand in front of the triptychs by Hieronymus Bosch that I was fortunate to see in Belgium, I came to realise that the level of detail in them was overwhelming. That said, I spent most of that trip with aching legs and feet from all the walking, every gallery visit being punctuated by finding opportunities to sit down for a bit, so the whole trip had its overwhelming moments.

I should have known all of this ahead of time. Having heard the term “triptych” more when talking about groups of large canvasses by Francis Bacon, what I am seeing here are altar pieces, cabinets made to be opened for the benefit of a single person, or small group of people, a level of intimacy wrecked by displaying them permanently open behind a wall of glass. I only realised once back home that another painting was on the outer panels of “The Last Judgement” on display at the Groeningemuseum in Bruges, known as “Christ Crowned with Thorns”.

But the details... a hump-backed bird, with Goofy-like dog ears and wooden skis, carrying a letter on its beak wearing a red robe a hat comprising a funnel with a branch coming out of it, a bauble hanging from a branch (“The Temptation of St. Anthony”); a being comprised of a human head with legs coming from its metal shell, an arm coming out of the top holding a sword (“The Last Judgement”); a monk-like figure with a large head and no arms walks with a frame on wheels, an antenna coming out of their head (“The Temptation of St. Anthony”); a hooded blacksmith about to bring their hammer on a naked body slumped over their anvil (“The Last Judgement”).

Detail from "The Last Judgement"

No amount of description, and no amount of choice, will ever do justice describing the sheer... amount of imagery there is. Looking through Stefan Fischer’s book of the complete works of Bosch, as published by Taschen, the many pages that zoom in on detail, for example printing the dog-bird larger than it is in the painting, would make you think Bosch completed hundreds of paintings, despite only 25-30 works attributed to him or his atelier still being extant. The examination of his work, and the endless reproduction of it – of course we could have bought figurines of details from Bosch works in the gallery shops after seeing the real thing – truly makes every frame a painting.

I initially had the impression of the imagery of the hellscapes depicted in these altar pieces being an extension of the medieval doodles made in monastery documents by scribes, known as “marginalia” or “drolleries”, all strange creatures and people with trumpets coming out of their behinds. As much as I mentioned Bosch’s “personal inventiveness of his surreal imagery” last time, and wondering if there is a similar building of symbolism as would be found at the Magritte Museum, next door to “The Temptation of St. Anthony”,  bigger indicator was its subsequent influence, as indicated by Jan Provoost’s own “Last Judgement” featuring similar hellish imagery in one corner only a decade after Bosch’s death, and in the composition of more realist works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

The presence of this imagery helps to decentralise the subject of each painting overall – Jesus is pushed to the top of “The Last Judgement”, and St. Anthony is to the right in his depiction, their depictions no longer than other elements in each work. You are forced to look everywhere, from left to right, from up to down, taking in the whole, zeroing in on detail, then considering the external artwork. The hellish imagery could indicate an inevitability of evil, or even its ultimate triumph, but having hundreds of years to get used to seeing such imagery, reproduced in any form, could indicate its inevitable slide into banality.

The most famous of all Bosch works is “The Garden of Earthly Delights”, which I have not mentioned only because I did not see it on my trip – it is found in Madrid, Spain, or across numerous gift items at the Groeningemuseum, when I was expecting them to have a “Last Judgement” notebook at the very least.

Detail from "The Temptation of St Anthony"

I HAVE SEEN EYES IN THE TREES [533]

The Last Judgement (c. 1500-1505)

This is the first of a two-part look at the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, where I talk about everything up to the point of describing the works I saw, which will be for next time.

Having no knowledge of Bosch’s work other than the intricate and surreal figures contained in perhaps his most famous single work, the triptych “The Garden of Earthly Delights”, I knew even witnessing the personally creative artistry in such works would be truly special. 

This would form a lynchpin of a family holiday in the Belgian capital of Brussels, with a day trip to the historical centre of Bruges, a holiday of walking around art galleries, and walking between them.

The three pieces I saw, were, from the Royal Museums of Fine Art in Brussels, “The Temptation of St. Anthony”, and from the Groeningemuseum in Bruges, “The Last Judgement” and “Triptych of Job”. All of these were painted in the early 16^th century, Bosch having lived until 1516.

If you already know your Bosch, you will immediately know where I will have slipped up: “The Temptation of St. Anthony” is a copy produced by Bosch’s atelier (workshop), with the original found in the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon, Portugal, while “Triptych of Job” is actually by an unnamed “follower of Bosch”. Only “The Last Judgement” is by Bosch, while acknowledging the input of his atelier.

I personally don’t think it mattered that I wasn’t seeing “original” works, not because of any questions over provenance, but more that I was getting used to the idea of the atelier, over the work of a singular person – it is not accurate to describe someone like Bosch, or Jan van Eyck, as like a film director, but once directors began to be talked about as “auteurs”, their vision as a “master” or “teacher” guiding a multi-person production, while painting the most important figures and details themselves, things began to make more sense. 

What I would have liked to know is how copies came to be made of these works, but with any documentation for this unlikely to survive, you can only speculate as to who could afford to request one, and their reasons for it, in a time when images were rarely reproduced at all, rarer still to the same quality as the original.

But now, in are age of endless reproduction of images, I had only noticed the “follower of” notice by the “Triptych of Job” when looking on my phone later. I have talked about not being too keen on people taking pictures of art in a gallery, removing their ability to take in the work in the moment, and removing context like how Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory” without considering how small the painting is in real life.

However, if you have fortuitously been afforded to encounter a Bosch triptych in full, then my guess is that you attended the gallery on the day, arranged to attend outside of normal opening hours, or you patiently waited for the right moment to take photographs of what you need before moving on, which in my case involved taking one picture to cover the whole work, then going in for details that either capture you in that moment, or that you have seen before. Only once you look at what pictures you took do you then start thinking about the lighting in the gallery at that moment, regardless of the settings of your camera, or why you neglected to think if there was any art on the other sides of the left and right panels, these triptychs having been made to be opened.

Once I have been able to put all of this to one side, I am left with what made me excited to see these Bosch triptychs in the first place, which is the personal inventiveness of his surreal imagery... which, as advertised, I will discuss next time.