Bosch. Virginia Pitts Rembert
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of Gluttony and Lust, oil on panel, 35.8 × 32 cm, Yale University Art gallery, New Haven
17. Ship of Fools, upper part of side panel, after 1491, oil on panel, 57.9 × 32.6 cm, The Louvre, Paris
Five van Akens were mentioned in the town records before the time of Hieronymus. One, a teacher named Jan van Aken, was noted in the archives of the city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch’s Cathedral of Saint John, in references covering several years (1423–1434). The historians believed that this was the grandfather of Hieronymus and probably the artist of the fresco of the cathedral – considered to be one of his prime influences.
In 1464, Laurent van Aken, possibly the father of Hieronymus, was referred to as a citizen of ‘s-Hertogenbosch.[8] This was the extent of the factual data referring to the artist. The historians were forced to turn back to the evidence of the paintings themselves, but none of them was dated and none was mentioned in contemporary writing. Small wonder that this produced confusing results in the historical evaluations of the works.
By approaching their studies with preconceived ideas, the scholars made what now seem obvious mistakes. For instance, Louis Demonts, in 1919, sketched an evolution of the paintings from the premise that Bosch had evolved in his subject matter from the traditional theological point of view to a personal moral judgment. This led Demonts to date as late works, The Cure of Foll, The Conjurer, and The Ship of Fools – later established on stylistic grounds to be from Bosch’s youth. This same system caused him to date as an early work the Prado “Epiphany,” seen later by such historians as de Tolnay and Combe as a surpassing synthesis of the artist’s lifetime achievements.
Not until Charles de Tolnay’s definitive treatise, written in 1937, was a satisfactory chronology even established, or the works by Bosch’s own hand separated from those of his disciples or copyists. De Tolnay bore directly on the technical evidence of the paintings. He noted that the beginner is betrayed by archaism-stiff figures, long-waisted and with awkward gestures, having no true existence in space nor relationship with one another and the background, and with few and arbitrary folds in their clothing. By observing such characteristics in some Boschian works, he was able to trace a convincing development from the obviously youthful to those of undoubted antithesis in style and conception. De Tolnay successfully demonstrated that Bosch developed consistently into a great landscape painter and a superb colorist. Although he never achieved the suavity of an Italian High Renaissance master, in later works he even created a sfumata effect which unified figures and background into a harmonious entirety. De Tolnay’s work in this direction was so convincing that subsequent writers accepted his classifications as almost incontrovertible.[9]
There have been exhaustive attempts to clarify the artist’s subject matter, as well. In de Tolnay’s words: “The oldest writers, Lampsonius and Carel van Mander, attached themselves to his most evident side, to the subject; their conception of Bosch, inventor of fantastic pieces of devilry and of infernal scenes, which prevails still today [1937] in the large public, prevailed until the last quarter of the 19th century in historians.” Then those historians who saw in the painter a precursor to realism, swung completely in the other direction. They studied his works according to exterior influences such as literature, the artistic tradition of the North, historical events, and the medieval interpretation of the Bible.
18. The Cripples, ink drawing, 28.5 × 20.8 cm, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna
19. Pieter van der Heyden, The Sleeping Pedlar Surrounded by Monkeys Playing with his Merchandises, 1557, from a drawing by Pieter Bruegel, engraving, 22 × 29.7 cm, Wittert Gallery, Luttich
None of these sources produced any conclusive results on the meaning of Bosch’s cryptic imagery. Again in this realm, one of the finest studies was that of de Tolnay. He went far in establishing current influences that would account for much Boschian iconography. Most importantly, he introduced a knowledge of Freudian psychology, revealing Bosch’s remarkable presentiment of this science. Jacques Combe followed de Tolnay’s lead in his treatise, translated into English from the French in 1946, and continuously acknowledged his indebtedness to the prior monographer, but his study was no mere imitation. He suggested many sources of symbolism overlooked by de Tolnay, such as alchemy and the tarot game. He made a strong case for association between Bosch’s ideology and that of the fourteenth-century Netherlandish mystic, Jan van Ruysbroek.
A Ruysbroek follower, Gerard Groote, had spread his master’s teachings by founding the association of the Brethren of the Life in Common, numerous orders of which flourished in the fifteenth-century Netherlands. Since two schools of this order had been established in ‘s-Hertogenbosch in that century, Combe believed that Bosch might well have been influenced by their teachings. He supported this idea by quoting many passages from Ruysbroek’s writings which would seem to throw light on certain images in the paintings. This monograph of Combe’s is the finest of expression, even in translation, and is worthy to take its place beside de Tolnay’s.
With such respectable scholastic attention, Bosch had finally come into his own in the mid-twentieth century as a significant artist. His works were seen not merely as an influence on Brueghel, but as extremely interesting in themselves. They were a deviating but appropriate link within the “Flemish tradition” in painting, with its curiously combined naturalism and symbolism. The work of de Tolnay, together with the increasing interest in Surrealism, had inspired popular interest in Bosch as a painter of the imaginary. It followed that several articles on Bosch were published in the most popular American periodicals, as well as in magazines of art. The popular articles presented Bosch as an interesting, almost freakish fantasist of the past and a precursor to Surrealism in his “queerness.”
In most of the books written in English, as well as translated into English, the more scholarly authors continued to search for the exact sources of Bosch’s symbolism in outside material. Their implication was that Bosch’s symbols, however enigmatic, illustrated images already formed in literature or tradition, and that with enough study these sources would eventually be brought to light and his imagery made comprehensible.
With the 1947 German edition and its translation into English of Wilhelm Fränger’s book The Millennium of Hieronymus Bosch, published by the University of Chicago, in 1951, Boschian research took a new direction. Fränger, too, felt that the answer to the artist’s mystery lay outside the realm of art, but rather than many sources of his symbolism, there was only one. None of the historians had conceived the idea, he asserted, that Bosch might have been obscuring his imagery with a secret purpose in mind-that of presenting the message of a society to which he belonged.
If this were true, the answer to the painter’s enigma would lie in one place rather than in many. Fränger, in fact, brought all previous studies of Bosch’s work under question. Dissatisfied with their over-emphasis on the painter’s demons and hells, he believed that neither the separate hell scenes nor the paintings as a whole had ever been understood in their proper context. Thus, his was a radical departure from all previous interpretations; a highly intriguing and original study of Bosch, it illuminated as well the mind of its author.
Although Fränger’s premise has since been discounted by many art historians, others have remained loyal to it. This, and the fact that its epiphanies and absurdities might have faded out of general currency with time justifies to this author reprising the study and thus, giving it more attention than others in the following review.
Chapter II: Fränger’s Thesis (Epiphanies and Absurdities)
20. Detail of the central panel of The Epiphany, or The Adoration of the Magi, the Brouchorst Bosschuyse Triptych, oil on panel, 138 × 72 × 144 cm, Museo nacional del Prado, Madrid
Wilhelm Fränger began his study of Hieronymus Bosch and his work by deploring the “vulgar misunderstanding”
This material has been amplified in recent years and has been recently reported by Roger Marijnissen. Hieronymus’ father, three uncles, and a brother were all listed in the family records as being painters, and his nephew was a woodcarver. His father, Anthonius, the father of five, including two girls, bought a stone house on Bossche Markt, the main town square and repaid the amount of the purchase in nine years, bespeaking a relative monetary comfort. The references in the records that Hieronymus sold property on behalf of his wife suggest that she was also well off.
Since so much attention will be given to the