Hieronymus Bosch. Virginia Pitts Rembert
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pertaining to another leader of the Brethren (a man who was being tried posthumously), that “he exercises a special mode of sexual intercourse, yet not contrary to Nature, of which he says it was that of Adam in Paradise”. If this “special mode” refers to an act distinct from the animal one, “yet not contrary to nature”, then it is clearly sinless, and could be practiced in perfect innocence – providing pure pleasure not befouled by any sense of shame. In this statement, thought the writer, lay the real meaning of the Earthly Delights centre section. It was an illustration of this “special mode” of sexual play, the “immortal expression to this Adamite eroticism”, that was revealed in the painting, not directly, but secreted in a mesh of symbolic communications. Having brought us to this conclusion, Fränger proceeded to his prime purpose – that of translating “this Free Spirit ars amandi out of the secret code of symbolism into generally comprehensible language”.
This is enough of Fränger’s argument to illustrate the nature of his interpretation and his characteristic mode of thought – a thoroughly rational, in fact, brilliantly logical analysis which on the surface was exceedingly convincing. Upon more careful scrutiny, however, it was the scholar’s logic, not Bosch’s, that he revealed. What Fränger consistently did here was to follow a system of reasoning that set up a hypothesis as an arbitrary starting point and then, through misleading inferences, arrived at subsequent hypotheses and developed the conclusions implicit in them, ad infinitum. A construction of thought was created, no portion of which could be removed without damage to the whole, nor explained without reference to the whole. But the entire structure rested upon the original hypothesis, a very shaky foundation indeed.
This was Fränger’s hypothesis: that the paintings containing the major part of Bosch’s enigmatic symbolism, being in the form of altarpieces, must have been made for a devotional purpose. They contain anticlerical and anti-pagan invective that could have been made neither for the Church nor for a pagan group. An example of the anticlerical has already been shown in the fat monk being served by his nuns in the Hay Wagon. Another is in the pig wearing a nun’s wimple and veil soliciting the affections of a man in the Hell scene of the Garden. Since it was not the practice of a late medieval artist to paint merely for his own satisfaction, nor is it conceivable that private commissioners would have wanted such odd altarpieces for their own chapels, then there must have been a group outside the Church, operating between its severe discipline and pagan anarchy, but fighting both. These paintings must have been made for a heretical sect, therefore, which was forced to hide its ideas in secret symbols whose explanations would clarify Bosch’s enigmatic figures. To Fränger, this meant without question the Adamite cult.
Are the points of the hypothesis defensible? The fact of the traditional altarpiece form strongly implied to the historian a devotional purpose – therefore, he had to seek the type of group, which would use Bosch’s altarpieces for such a purpose. It is not absolutely necessary, however, to think of these paintings as having a devotional purpose. This was not a time of strict adherence to tradition. Northern Europe at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries was in a period of great transition.
Already, the influence of the Renaissance from the South had been felt, entailing a discard of many old forms and ways. There was a growing secularisation, resulting in a patronage for artists widened far beyond the extent of the Church. It is conceivable that the altarpiece form could have been used for a non-devotional painting commissioned by a private patron – merely because it allowed for intriguing complexity. But why could these paintings not have had a devotional purpose for this private patron – or for the Church, for that matter? It is the symbols of the pagan cults, which Fränger called signs of “swampy procreation and ritual promiscuity” that he did not believe could have been shown on church altars. Perhaps they could not be shown on our church altars, but in that time of less tender sensibility, evil practices of all kinds were denounced in descriptive detail from the very pulpits. In fact, such practices are denounced even today from fundamentalist Protestant pulpits.
Ecce Homo, c. 1450–1516.
Oil and gold on panel, 52.1 × 54 cm.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.
Crucifixion with a Donor, c. 1490.
Oil on panel, 74.7 × 61 cm.
Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels.
Fränger pointed out that Bosch’s altarpieces always present an ideal content to balance the evil. Perhaps this would have justified their use as devotional altar paintings. If the worshipper would reflect upon the ideal scene (for instance, of a saint who remained faithful even in the face of all the forces of evil that Satan could bring to bear on him), he would be prepared to renounce his evil ways. As an added bit of goad, his possible future in hell was cast – in case he paid no heed to the admonishment.
Fränger previously placed Bosch’s paintings on the theme of passion and those on the Adoration of the Child into a group distinct from the controversial altarpieces – calling those paintings “straightforward, intelligible, and traditional”. It is well known that these paintings also exhibit many instances of evil workings in the world. Especially in his Passions, the painter gave the most hideous aspect to the ordinary humanity that crucified Christ. This group cannot be completely divorced from the large triptychs Fränger discussed. Perhaps the interpretation given the large triptychs by Father José de Següenza should be reconsidered in spite of Fränger’s elaborate argument to the contrary. Següenza was the first interpreter of the Earthly Delights painting according to an association with the Hay Wagon. He saw both of these triptychs as containing the same idea incipient in Bosch’s earlier works – that wicked blind humanity would not heed the lessons of the Christian faith, but would indulge in a sinful life in a world that must surely end in hell.
One of the contentions upon which Fränger based his divergent interpretation of the Earthly Delights was that Bosch’s early and late works could not be closely associated. Since the earlier ones were more straightforward than the later ones, there must be a special meaning for the covert symbolism of the latter. The scholar did not believe, in addition, that the same intentions should inevitably be read into any two of the paintings, for instance – the late Earthly Delights and the earlier Hay Wagon. If one could find reasons to belie the dual association of these paintings, it could be said that the message of the first painting was positive rather than negative. There evidently no clean break between the contents and message of his early and late works – nor between that of the two works in question – rather an elaboration of the same message; therefore, this position of the author’s cannot be considered tenable.
If the large triptych paintings are seen as carrying on the same ideas contained in Bosch’s earlier works, it would seem that if any of the paintings was suitable to place before a worshipping body in the Church, these could have had their place at the altar, too. It would not, then, be necessary to look for a patron outside the church to justify their existence. But Fränger discarded the possibility of there being a private individual who would commission the work for his own home chapel too quickly. Even if such an individual did not have so serious or specific a purpose for the altarpiece as an addendum to a private chapel, he might have commissioned a Bosch painting merely because it was fascinating in itself.
The artist’s popular appeal is shown by the fact that his manner and subject treatments were adopted so quickly by artists such as Huys and Bruegel. It may be that Bosch painted for a delighted audience, only too happy to keep him in commissions. We know from records quoted above that he was held in repute by his fellow townsmen. We know, too, that both the Emperor Charles V and one of his courtiers, Felipe de Guevara, had acquired several of Bosch’s paintings within a remarkably short time after the painter’s death. The fact that Charles’ son Philip confiscated one altarpiece from a rebellious Netherlandish Burgher makes it seem more likely that some paintings were owned privately rather than being part of the sacred equipment of churches; but it suggests as even less of a likelihood that the paintings were the hidden and guarded property of heretical sects. If such were the case, it is improbable that the paintings would have been in free circulation