Astrology and Jerome Bosch

Author(s): Andrew Pigler

Source: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 92, No. 566 (May, 1950), pp. 132-136
Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
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 ANDREW
and
Astrology Jerome
COMPARED to the eccentricity of the subject-matter, and the
piling up of intricate details, in most paintings by Jerome
Bosch, that in the Boymans Museum at Rotterdam is sur-
prisingly straightforward (Fig. I7). It is a mature work
painted in about 15o10, in which the form and significance of a
relatively few objects seem to have been pondered deeply.
Its main figure, a tragi-comic, emaciated creature, is 'en-
graved' in the very centre of the circular panel with the
precision of a bas-relief; it should be easy enough, one would
think, to arrive at its meaning. But this has not proved the
case. True, the explanation provided by Gustav Glick, that
the man represents the Prodigal Son, has, in spite of one or
two dissident voices, gained general currency.' But his hair
and the heavy burden he carries will not fit this identification.
It has also been suggested that the figure represents a wan-
derer or vagabond,2 but this is not convincing either, since it
takes no account of the introduction of certain other elements
in the picture. Indeed, Max J. Friedlainder has come out with
a very characteristic observation about it: Dieser Szene, he
writes, wie allen GenreszenenBoschs, ist statt der eindeutigen
Realitdt eine schielende und zwinkernde Fraglichkeit eigen. Nie
verldsstuns die irritierendeEmpfindung,dass etwas 'dahinterstecke',
dass der Meister mit dem, was er zeigt, etwas verheimlicht,auf etwas
anspielt.3
This is not the first time that such a figure appears in
fifteenth-century art. When about sixty years before Bosch,
Jacopo Bellini made a drawing of a similar figure in his
sketch-book, now in the Louvre Print Room, he gave it a
normal, commonplace character, unruffled by spiritual tor-
ments. Here he has a great many of the same attributes as in
the Bosch picture: a heavy burden on his back, a stick in his
right hand, threadbare shoes and stockings, and a dog to
accompany him. But in spite of these similarities, the specta-
tor will be perfectly willing to accept the statement in the
index of subjects at the end of the sketch-book (in a fifteenth-
century hand) identifying Bellini's figure with a charcoal
burner (carboner)peddling his wares.4 Bosch's subject does not,
however, admit of such a simple solution.
In the following paragraphs our intention is to clear some
of the fog that surrounds the subject-matter of Bosch's paint-
ing by indicating for the first time the source from which the
artist drew. It has nothing directly to do with such matters as
1 G.
GLOCK: Aus drei Jahrhunderten europaiischerMalerei, Vienna [19331, PP-
8-19, 318.
2 L. BALDASS in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, N.F., i
[I926], pp. II5-II7. E. SUDECK: Bettlerdarstellungen vom Ende des XV. Jahr-
hunderts bis zu Rembrandt, Strasbourg [19311, P. 17. L. BALDASS: Hieronymus
Bosch, Vienna [1943], pp. 17, 232. E. R. MEYER in Phanix, i [I946], No. 7,
pp. 1-7.
3 M. J. FRIEDLA NDER: Die altniederldndische Malerei, Vol.
v, Berlin [I927],
p. 10o2.
4 v. GOLUBEW: Die Skizzenbiicher Jacopo Bellinis, Vol. ii, Brussels [I9o8], pl.
xcwv(7o).
132
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PIGLER
Bosch
social and spiritual life, suggested by Tolnay, Baldass, and
Fraenger5 as the point of departure for their interpretations
of Bosch's subject matter, but with a theme widely known
and studied in late medieval times: we refer to astrology, a
science as assiduously cultivated in the sixteenth as in the
fifteenth century. It would be surprising indeed if this science
were not also met with in the work of Bosch.
It is a well-known fact that there exists an earlier version of
the Rotterdam 'vagabond' on the reverse of the shutters of
the Hay Wain triptych from the Escorial, now in the Prado
(Fig. 18). Here we find the same emaciated figure, only on a
larger scale, with a heavy basket on his back, a stick in his
hand, shuffling along and casting worried and irresolute
glances behind him. Here is once more the unfriendly-looking
dog at his heels. Students have made a serious mistake in
failing to examine these two scenes in conjunction. If they
had done so, they might have realised that the two figures are
derived from late medieval astrology, from the occult science
dealing with the influence that the planets exercised on the
earth and mankind and, furthermore, that they represent a
so-called 'child' of the planet Saturn. Both show the real type
of the Saturnine character, of meagre countenance, of with-
drawn and melancholy disposition, with the slow movements
of a man who cannot make up his mind.6
Where did the artist derive his inspiration for this theme?
Evidently from some of the numerous series of fifteenth-
century pictographs known as Planetenkinderbilder.These
woodcuts, engravings, and drawings generally show the
planet dominating the human beings ranged below it, but
the most popular works - especially the German woodcuts -
tend to omit the planet deities and to concentrate on what is
taking place on the earth.7 Bosch has adopted this second
course. His figure is very similar to the heavily-burdened
traveller in the middle foreground of a Florentine engraving
of about 1460 (Fig. 21). In this, as well as in a similar German
drawing by the 'Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet', in the
Medieval House-bookat Wolfegg (Fig. 23) swine are made to
play an important part; the earth being Saturn's element,
naturally the pig digging in the ground is esteemed his
favourite animal.8 The same animal is to be seen in the
middle-ground of the Rotterdam painting (its presence there
inducing some scholars to connect the scene with the story of
the Prodigal Son). In the House-bookdrawing, a man in the
5 CH. DE TOLNAY : Hieronymus Bosch,Basle [x9371. L. BALDASS: Hieronymus
Bosch, Vienna [i9431. W. FRAENGER: Hieronymus Bosch, Das Tausendjiihrige
Reich, Coburg [19471.
6 A. HAUBER: Planetenkinderbilder und Sternbilder,
Strasbourg [i9I6], p. 126.
SA. HAUBER: op. cit., p. 264-
8 Compare A. CHASTEL in Phabus, i [1946], p. 131. Concerning the con-
nection between Bosch and the 'Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet' (about
fifteen years older than himself), see D. BAX: Ontcijfering van Jeroen Bosch,
's-Gravenhage [19491, p. 239.
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17. A 'Child'of Saturn,by Jerome Bosch. Panel, diameter, 71 cm. (Boymans Museum, Rotterdam.)
18. 'Children'of Saturn, byJerome Bosch. Back of the Shutters of The Hay Wain. Panel, overall measurements,
125 by Ioo cm. (Prado, Madrid.)
19. The Hay Wain, by Jerome Bosch. Detail. (Prado, Madrid.)
20. 'Children'of Luna. Version of a composition by Jerome Bosch. Panel, 53 by 65 cm. (Musee Municipal,
Saint-Germain-en-Laye.)

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23. Saturn,by the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, Drawing 24. Luna, by the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet. Drawing in
in the MedievalHouse-book,Wolfegg. the MedievalHouse-book,Wolfegg.

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 ASTROLOGY AND JEROME BOSCH

foreground is apparently occupied in disembowelling a on one foot and the shoe on the other, the cat's hide hanging
horse: in the left foreground of the Prado painting is the from the basket," the young owl seated on a branch of the
skeleton of a horse. But this is not all. Further facts connect tree above his head,12 and his angry little dog, are further
the objects in Bosch's two works with the planet Saturn, who symbols and signs of his miserable condition, of the mis-
is the cause of so much misfortune on earth. Partly identified fortunes that have befallen him, and will befall him on his
with Chronos, the deity of Time, Saturn has become the journey. Perhaps he knows that his wife is already in the
ruler over the destinies of men. He holds the reins of justice arms of a soldier, although he has only just left the cottage
in his hands, he decrees capital punishment. It is quite usual, that is his home.
therefore, to find gallows, with the executioner's victims Since astrological ideas were so familiar everywhere in
dangling from them, in representations of this planet in the Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it is not
fifteenth century. In his Madrid painting, Bosch has not for- surprising that motifs
gotten this traditional detail either. In the same way, scenes of that appear in the
quarrels, violence, and plundering are also ascribed to the Rotterdam painting
baneful influence of Saturn. The pole at the top of the hill in seem to have been
the right background of the Rotterdam painting is a pillory understood, or at any
too, from which corpses have already fallen. One might go rate used, for a long
further and suggest that the shape itself of the Rotterdam time after its execu-
painting (a circle within an octagon) is a reference to the tion. This will be
astrological origin of its subject. However, Bosch has omitted clear from one of the
certain details that take a prominent place in the House-book illustrations in the
drawing already mentioned - the farmers, for instance, and Emblemata by Andrea
the delinquents in the stocks - and has introduced other Alciati in the I547
motifs, so that it must not be assumed that these specific edition, repeated in
examples (Figs. 21 and 23) were necessarily the ones that he the Paris edition of
chose as models. mpft

I602 (Fig. A). The

It is possible to demonstrate the influence of the Planeten- Fig. A. Woodcut from A. ALCIATI: woodcut, designed by
kinderbilderin other, earlier works of the Master of s'Herto- Emblemata,Paris [1602]. Bernard Salomon and
genbosch, notably in the version of the Sorcererin the Musec entitled Bonis auspicijs
Municipal at Saint Germain-en-Laye (Fig. 20). Among the incipiendum, has beneath it the following four lines, which,
'children' of Luna the itinerant magician is always to be together with the scene itself, suggest that Bosch's painting
found, standing before a small table and enrapturing his was the source of inspiration:
gullible, ignorant audience with his conjuring tricks. The Auspiciisresceptamalis,benecederenescit.
comparison with the corresponding scene in the House-bookis Feliciqucesuntominefacta,iuvant.
particularly convincing (Fig. 24). From the point of view of Quidquid omitte:
agis, mustelatibisi occurrat,
the actual scene represented, the only difference between the Signamale hec sortisbestiapravagerit.
two is that in the drawing the sorcerer takes the frog out of This echoes the troubled and pessimistic attitude of the
the fool's mouth, whereas in the painting the animal has Dutch painter: the attitude that new enterprises had better
already jumped out of the open mouth and is lying on the not be undertaken in the face of such presages of disaster. The
table.9 In the House-bookdrawing the sorcerer's wife, his little only important difference is that the dog in the woodcut
dog, and an ape accompany him; in the Bosch only the dog is takes on more the semblance of a weasel. But this is a mere
seen. But there exists a drawing in the Louvrex? which, in detail and does not affect the main argument.
company with Baldass, we believe to be a drawing from the Bosch was living near the Flemish-Dutch border (c. 1450-
Saint Germain-en-Laye picture, in which the woman and 1516); Alciati the jurist (1492-1550) worked at Milan and
the ape as well as the dog are present. Pavia. With no apparent contact between them, the two men
It is possible to go one step further along these lines. We have expressed the same ideas in their works. As far as it has
suggest that the terrestrial events represented in the Planeten- proved possible to compare the various editions of the
kinderbildernot only inspired the fantasy of Bosch, but also Emblemata, only the French illustrator of the editions of
the Giorgionesque painter of the small panel in the National 1547 and I602, Bernard Salomon, has noted the identity of
Gallery (No. 1173) described as The GoldenAge. The latter the theme. In the earlier editions, for instance in the Venetian
appears to have used the illustrations from the planet edition of I546, a woodcut of quite another composition
Jupiter: the similarity between it and the Florentine engrav- illustrates this emblem. Where, (if we are correct), Bernard
ing of Jupiter (Fig. 22) is particularly striking. In both cases Salomon became acquainted with the work of Bosch, we can-
we find a youth sitting under a baldacchino and a youth not say, the provenance of the Rotterdam picture being only
kneeling before him at the foot of the throne, and some of the known since the second half of the nineteenth century. It is
same animals - a leopard and a stag - appear in both land- true that it was then in the Theodor Schiff Collection in
scapes. Paris, from where it passed to Vienna, to Albert Figdor,13 so
However, to return to the Rotterdam picture: no doubt that it is just conceivable that it was already in France in
Bosch developed the astrological idea by adding more popu-
lar elements of his own. Thus, the contrast between the boot
11 CH. DE TOLNAY: cit., pp. 46, 72. Compare D. BAX: op. cit., p. 225.
9 F. SCHMIDT-DEGENER in GazettedesBeaux-Arts 12 Compare C. RIPA: Op
Iconologia,Padua ed. [1630], iii, p. I115.
See
[I9O6], i, pp. 151, 154. 13xa
x10Repro. L. BALDASS:HieronymusBosch, Vienna [1943], Fig. 122. Compare G. GLtCK: op. cit., p. io, note.

135

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 ASTROLOGY AND
1547. The supposition that a drawing served as mediator
between panel and woodcut cannot be excluded.
Let us cast one further glance at the triptych from the
Escorial. In the central panel on the inside is represented the
Hay Wain (detail, Fig. 19). What does this really signify? Some
critics have found an origin in the Bible, but without the good
fortune of coming on the precise passage to elucidate it.
Tolnay believed he had found an explanation in a Nether-
landish proverb14 but his assertion is untenable. For what
about the presence of Christ, appearing in the clouds above,
if the mysterious scene is merely the representation of a
proverb? In the opinion of Baldass, the wain is the chariot of
sensual pleasure attended by the personifications of the seven
deadly sins and drawn to Hell by devils.15 In our opinion the
reference to the seven deadly sins may possibly be correct, but
this whole interpretation of the Hay Wain is exceedingly
doubtful. 16
14CH. DE TOLNAY: op. cit., p. 63 note 57.
15 L. BALDASS:HieronymusBosch, Vienna [1943], pp. 23, 236 ff.
16 I was unable to consult the article of L. LEBEER and j. GRAULS: 'Het
hooi en de Hooiwagenin de beeldendeKunsten',in GentscheBijdragentot de Kunst-
geschiedenis,v, Antwerp [1938].
BY CECIL GOULD
A Correggio
Discovery
THE Agonyin the Gardenby Correggio (Apsley House) is one of
the most famous paintings of the Italian High Renaissance in
this country. Its pedigree can be traced back with fair cer-
tainty to a period in the sixteenth century only some forty
years after it was painted. Various old copies exist and also
various engravings both from the original and from the
copies. These corresponded well enough with the original and
showed no important deviations from it. One would have
thought that our knowledge of the picture was as complete as
could ever be hoped and that no new factor was capable of
arising which could materially alter the situation.'
Yet the recent cleaning of the picture has produced very
surprising results (Fig. 25). An X-ray photograph made be-
fore any treatment was begun shows a totally different
form under the top painting of the apostle on the extreme
right and no trace of the figure which was visible to the
naked eye, and during, and even before, the cleaning, it
1 The picture is included in the Apsley House gift, made to the nation by the
present Duke of Wellington. In due course it will be exhibited again at Apsley
House and in the meantime is on view at the Victoria and Albert Museum,
under the supervision of the authorities of which institution the present restora-
tion was carried out.
136
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JEROME BOSCH
The solution to this problem is, we believe, to be found in
two verses from Amos (2, 13-4): 'Behold, I am pressed under
you, as a cart is pressedthat is full of sheaves.'7 Therefore, the
flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not
strengthen his force, neither shall the mighty deliver himself.'
The symbolical hay wain is a solemn warning and lesson to
mankind of the inevitability of punishment. Both pictures on
the insides of the wings are perfectly consistent with this
interpretation. The beginning of the tragedy of mankind is
shown in the scene of the Fall of Man and his Expulsion from
Paradise on one side; the inevitable end is the scene of Hell
on the other. The picture on the reverse of the shutter ad-
mirably suits this pictorial programme, by showing the
solitary wanderer under the influence of Saturn, suffering
the torments of body and soul. If we bear in mind that it
was quite common for astrological elements to enter into
ecclesiastical art in the later Middle Ages, there will seem
nothing strange in the fact that Bosch combined in
his triptych religious ideas, and ideas that border on
profanity.
17 In the Vulgate:Ecce, ego stridebosubtervos, sicutstridetplaustrumonustum
fleno.
was abundantly clear to the restorer that the paint hitherto
visible in this area was not original. Since its removal the
form already discovered by the X-rays has been revealed
(Fig. 27). The most interesting thing about it is that it is com-
pletely Correggiesque. It is altogether typical of the mature
Correggio and closely analogous with, inter alia, the figure of
the Magdalen in the Prado Noli me tangere and with the
figure on the left in the Doria and Louvre Virtues(Fig. 26).
The re-emergence of this figure has radically altered the ac-
cents of the picture as a whole, and this is undoubtedly the
most important result of the cleaning. For the picture hither-
to had appeared wildly unbalanced: Christ and the angel
were brilliantly lit while the whole area to the right of them -
rather more than half the surface of the picture - was in
semi-darkness, which was inadequately relieved by the small
patch of the sky at dawn in the top right corner. The fact that
the foremost of the newly-revealed aspostles is shown not in
darkness but in half-light restores the balance of the composi-
tion by providing the necessary counterpart to Christ and the
angel. Less interesting changes resulting from the cleaning
are the appearance of another different apostle in the centre
and of a small portion of the body of the third almost hidden