el bosco notes

(22) comparing Delicias and St. Anthony

2007-08-07T16:39:00.000-07:00

This composite is to illustrate Binstock's method applied to the triptych of Saint Anthony in Lisbon and El Jardín de las Delicias/The Garden of Delights in Madrid. Dimensions are approximate. There is a better illustration of the Lisbon triptych, including the frame, in Laurinda Dixon, Bosch, plate 90 on page 177, which shows that the three panels are spaced farther apart than in the composite shown here.

(21) Haywain panels and tapestries to scale

2007-08-06T00:23:00.000-07:00

It's very subjective, but to me it seems as though the octagonal Pedlar in Rotterdam does not match very well with the Miser in Wahington and the panels in Paris and New Haven. In other words, even though the three small panels come from the same tree, I don't think they were a trio.
Interestingly, the haywain in the tapestry is not much larger than the one in the Haywain triptychs, which suggests to me that there might have been a triptych with the same exterior as the Haywain triptychs and a center that was more or less similar to the center of the tapestry. There is a painted panel that resembles the tapestry and is about the same height as the Miser and Ship of Fools panels, but it seems too cluttered to go with them.
Applying Binstock's method to a comparison between The Garden of Delights/El Jardín de las DeliciasPedlar seems to support the idea that they could be the work of the same artist.

(20) Benjamin Binstock's digital connoisseurship

2007-08-04T22:50:00.000-07:00

The art historian Benjamin Binstock has been working with large sets of digital photographs to examine paintings by Rembrandt and artists who have been confused with Rembrandt (shown here) and also the artist Vermeer and an "unknown apprentice." The idea is that having a set of photographs reproduced to the same scale is helpful for making comparisons and seeing patterns. A new book titled Vermeer's Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery and the Unknown Apprentice, which will be published in 2008, will include according to the publisher "a remarkable color gatefold spread that presents the entirety of Vermeer’s oeuvre arranged in chronological order in 1/20 scale, demonstrating the relative size of the paintings over the artist’s career." The photo shown here is from a short discussion online of a project for Rembrandt photographs.
This kind of comparison seems especially useful for the paintings that are usually attributed to Hieronymus Bosch, particularly since for instance The Garden of Earthly Delights and the Lisbon Temptations of Saint Anthony have never been exhibited together in the same place.
For this project and for the time being I will be using a simplified version of Binstock's method since it is not easy to make sure that pictures really are exactly to the same scale. For instance, it is not easy to tell whether published dimensions refer to the size of the picture, the size of the panel, or the size of the picture plus the frame, and the measurements of the tapestries must be approximate. I will be using published dimensions and resizing images in Photoshop Elements 2.0 so that one pixel=one millimeter. The composites posted here will have to be further scaled down since the tapestries are very large.

(19) la banidad del mundo

2007-08-04T22:34:00.000-07:00

In a new book published in 2006, El Bosco y la tradición pictórica de lo fantástico, page 118, note 38, José Manuel Cruz Valdevinos observed that two or three letters in a single word in an old inventory seem to have been misread:

…Cuando la entrega se denomina una pintura "de la banidad del mundo", si bien los autores transcriben "bariedad"… (When it was delivered it was listed as a painting of "the vanity of the world", even though the authors transcribe it as "variety"…)

Professor Cruz Valdevinos does not state that he examined the 1593 inventory himself, but since he teaches in Madrid, presumably his note is based on his own observation. Perhaps new books on El Bosco should include a photograph of the original handwritten page, since the difference between variedad and vanidad is important. (In modern spelling, b has changed to v in both words.) The two words look similar even in a computer font that mimics cursive handwriting, and the apparent misreading might have been caused by a slightly ambiguous dot on the letter i. If this new reading is correct, then the anonymous author of the 1593 inventory identified the subject of the triptych that has since been called El Jardín de las Delicias as "the vanity of the world".
In other words, it was already identified in 1593 as belonging to what by the seventeenth century had become a whole genre of paintings, mostly still life, that illustrate the famous verse from the book of Ecclesiastes,

Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes; vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas. (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

This makes explaining El Jardín de las Delicias much simpler. It includes some of the same still life objects as a seventeenth century painting signed "J. Vermeulen" (perhaps a pseudonym) because it represents the same subject. Its correct designation as a vanitas painting seems to have become lost precisely because it was too easy to see. Vanitas vanitatum is a rare if not unique subject for a triptych, but it is not at all unusual for a European painting.
The question still remains as to how new the subject of vanitas was in 1528 when El Jardín de las Delicias was painted. (Please see the notes page for the phrase la vanidad del mundo in the preface to a book by Antonio de Guevara, Libro Áureo de Marco Aurelio, published in 1528.) Is it the first large painting with a vanitas subject? (Please see the notes page for a hypothetical reconstruction of a lost triptych of uncertain date.) If so, then far from being a mysterious and unrepeatable picture, in fact it was widely imitated. Just google vanitas.
For some previous attempts to explain El Jardín de las Delicias as a vanitas painting in the elbosco blog, please see "(56) vanitas and books" and "(57) vanitas".
There will be more notes here on El Bosco y la tradición pictórica de lo fantástico, which is a remarkable collection of lectures that took place at the Museo del Prado in 2005-2006. The authors all continued the traditional (and I think incorrect) identification of Hieronymus Bosch as the author of El Jardín de las Delicias, but they have greatly expanded the range of ideas being considered.

(18) comparanda: a haywain triptych

2007-05-28T22:19:00.001-07:00

(17) another version

2007-05-28T15:49:00.000-07:00

(16) another version with columns

2007-05-26T22:21:00.000-07:00

(15) reversing the tapestry cartoons

2007-05-26T05:07:00.000-07:00

When the tapestry copy of El Jardín de las Delicias was made, each panel was reversed left to right, but a painted copy of a painted panel is not likely to be in the opposite direction from the original. Perhaps it makes more sense to reconstruct a hypothetical triptych as shown here, with the haywain going in the opposite direction.

(14) another vanitas triptych?

2007-05-25T22:43:00.000-07:00

I've explained on the el bosco updates page that El Jardín de las Delicias resembles later vanitas paintings, and that Ecclesiastes 1:2, Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes; vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas, is a rare if not unique subject for a triptych. But it may not necessarily be the only old triptych where Ecclesiastes 1:2 is a major theme. Most art historians are persuaded that the Ship of Fools (Paris), a fragment with swimmers (New Haven), and the so-called Death of the Miser (Rotterdam) were once all part of the same triptych, since dendrochronological analysis has shown that all are painted on wood from the same tree. There have been no reasonable explanations of the hypothetical triptych's subject, and I am not persuaded that there ever was a triptych. The reason I am not persuaded is that the so-called Death of the Miser looks to me like a real scene from the life of St. Francis, and the scene that supposedly would go on the other side of a square center panel, the people drinking and swimming, seems to be more allegorical. But if the overall subject was Ecclesiastes 1:2, then maybe it would make sense to have a historical scene showing Saint Francis falling ill and then taking up a life of poverty, and an allegorical scene illustrating omnia vanitas where the concept of vanitas applies to Franciscans and laymen alike.
What would the triptych have looked like? There is a tapestry supposedly based on an original by Hieronymus Bosch that combines Franciscan and vanitas themes. If there was a triptych, it might have been somewhat like the reconstruction illustrated here. It might be that all of the images in this hypothetical reconstruction are copies of lost originals, and the date seems to have to be uncertain even though art historians know the approximate date the tree was cut down to make the panels. At least one additional version of the Haywain theme is lost, i.e. the version José de Sigüenza remembered as having dancers riding on the haywain, and there might have been others. The proportions of the tapestry shown here might have been changed to match the other tapestries in the set.

(13) la vanidad del mundo

2007-05-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

Here is the phrase "la vanidad del mundo" in context in a book published in 1528. (The full text is online at Proyecto Filosofía en español.)
Antonio de Guevara,
Libro áureo de Marco Aurelio (1528)
Prólogo
Comiença el Prólogo dirigido a la Sacra, Cessárea, Cathólica Magestad del invictíssimo semper Augusto, el Emperador Nuestro Señor, don Carlos, Quinto de este nombre, por la graçia de Dios Rey de Castilla, de León, de Aragón, etcétera. Embiado por fray Antonio de Guevara, de la Orden de los Frailes Menores de Observançia, Predicador en la Capilla de su Imperial Maiestad, sobre la translaçión que hizo de griego en latín, de latín en romançe, al libro llamado Áureo, el qual habla de los tiempos de Marco Aurelio, decimoséptimo Emperador de Roma.
La mayor vanidad que hallo entre los hijos de vanidad es, no contentos ser vanos en la vida, procuran aya memoria de sus vanidades después de la muerte. Parésçeles que, pues estando en la carne al mundo sirvieron con obras, desde la sepultura le offrezcan a más no poder sus voluntades. Yo iuraré iuren los tales que, si el mundo les diera perpetua vida, para siempre ellos permanesçieran en su locura. Paresçe que esto sea verdad, porque todo el tiempo que naturaleza los tuvo en esta vida sin occuparse en otra cosa, en serviçio del mundo emplearon la vida. Los que son del mundo, biviendo en el mundo, no es mucho que sirvan al mundo; pero lo que nos escandaliza es por qué después que les atajó los passos la muerte, sin que tome gusto la carne quieren oler a la vanidad del mundo en la sepultura. No se suffre que vean todos el fin de nuestra vida y ninguno jamás vea el fin de nuestra locura.
Tranquillo cuenta que, estando Iulio César, último dictador y primero emperador, en la Ulterior España, en la çiudad de Gades (que agora llamamos Cáliz) mirando en el templo esculpida la imagen del Magno Alexandro y sus victorias, dio de lo íntimo del coraçón un sospiro, y preguntado por qué sospirava, respondió: «¡O, triste de mí, que en los treinta años de la edad que yo tengo agora, ya tenía Alexandro sojuzgada toda la tierra y estava descansando en Babilonia. Yo, siendo romano, ni he hecho cosa porque merezca gloria en la vida ni dexe fama después de mi muerte.» …

el bosco updates

2007-05-23T15:54:00.000-07:00

Please see the new el bosco updates page for the most recent notes.

(12) Juana or Mencía de Mendoza

2006-11-17T00:59:00.000-08:00

The question of whether some panels seen in the palace of Hendrick III of Nassau in 1517 were from The Garden of Delights/El Jardín de las Delicias is now moot, since x-rays make it clear that the Nahuatl chronology showing the years 1519 through 1528 was part of the original composition, not something added later. Prior to some correspondence relative to the tapestries there is no record of the its existence. (See Paul Vandenbroeck, High Stakes in Brussels, 1567: "The Garden of Earthly Delights as the Crux of the Conflict Between William the Silent and the Duke of Alva," in Hieronymus Bosch: New Insights Into His Life and Work, Rotterdam, 2001, pp. 87-90.) In 1567 the triptych was apparently confiscated from Hendrick III's nephew William the Silent, and it is usually assumed that the original owner was Hendrick III, based only on the 1517 report about some other panels.
An alternative explanation for the triptych's presence in Brussels could be that Mencía de Mendoza, the wife of Hendrick III, took it there, or that it was sent to her. It might conceivably have been painted for her rather than for Juana, since in the Nahuatl chronology the year 1524 is in the Eden scene; in other words it might mark both the arrival of the Franciscans in New Spain and Mencía's marriage in 1524.
The drawing of Mencía Mendoza showing her loading a boat while wearing a fancy dress is from the same album as the well known ones of Cortés and of some Indians who went to Spain with him in 1528, who possibly also appear in the triptych. (See Christoph Weiditz, Authentic Everyday Dress of the Renaissance: All 154 Plates from the "Trachtenbuch," Dover, 1994.)

(11) Las Casas and the date of the drawing

2006-10-14T17:33:00.000-07:00

To clarify: the Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias was not published until 1552, 60 years after Columbus, by which time Bartholome de Las Casas had been telling the same story for decades. A document could date from long before its publication and still be a quotation of what Las Casas always said, "The Indies were discovered in the year one thousand four hundred and ninety-two," etc.

See Jose Fernando Ramirez, Proceso de residencia contra Pedro de Alvarado. Ilustrado con estampas sacadas de los antiguos codices mexicanos, y notas y noticias biograficas, criticas y arqueologicas (Mexico, 1847):

(p. 298) “La linea de ceros señalada con el n. 6, espresa la fecha de los 40 años que aquí se tomaron como basa para el cómputo crónologico; y la cruz, teñida de rojo, que separa las últimas cuatro cifras, indica la ejecucion que se dice acaeció cuatro años ántes del complemento de la otra, y segun mi congetura en el de 1537, incluso este en el cómputo. El color rojo es un símbolo que invariablemente designa una accion ó muerte cruenta en los combates, en los sacrificios, en los castigos y en aquellos pasage que traen consigo la idea del peligro.”

Ramirez also cited an inventory of the Boturini papers, which identified the page as having to do with Bartholome de Las Casas (the bishop of Chiapas), Cortés, and Malinche.

(p. 291) 1745 inventory of Boturini papers, inventario 4, no. 11: “En este mapa se representa el gran destrozo que ejecutaron en los indios algunos conquistadores por los pueblos que iban descubriendo. El Sr. obispo de las Chiapas dice los llevaban en collera atados en una cadena para que trabajasen en los astilleros, donde se tomaban las maderas para los navíos, y el que se fatigaba en el camino, venia un soldado y lo dividia por la cintura, para no tener el trabajo de apearse del caballo y desencadenarlo: otras veces les echaban los lebreles para que los despedazaran, lo que bien se demuestra en este mapa. En una de sus puntas se halla el Sr. Marques del Valle, y su intérprete Marina. Tiene algunas letras en lengua mexicana, y papel de marquilla.”

(10) detail photos

2006-10-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

The larger image, showing a detail from before the triptych was restored, is from John Rowlands, Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights (1979; previously published in 1977 as Le Jardin des Délices de Jérome Bosch), which consists of a brief introduction and a set of actual-size photographs of the inside panels.
The actual-size photographs are instructive not only because they document the condition of the triptych before restoration, but also because in some places comparing an actual-size image to an object helps to identify the image. The photo shown here was made by taking a color xerox from Rowlands' book to a cactus patch, which is much easier to do than taking a cactus to the Museo del Prado, particularly since as its English name prickly pear suggests a tuna cactus is best handled with tongs.
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo's picture of a hammock is reproduced more often, but he also published one illustration that consisted only of a nondescript oval and an indication that the oval was the same size as a certain kind of nut.

(9) translations of drawing captions

2006-10-02T23:45:00.000-07:00

Jose Fernando Ramirez, Proceso de residencia contra Pedro de Alvarado. Ilustrado con estampas sacadas de los antiguos codices mexicanos, y notas y noticias biograficas, criticas y arqueologicas (Mexico, 1847). Ramirez translated the Nahuatl captions as follows (pp. 293-94):

(man and woman at upper left)
fig. 1.—(Dos figuras.) –marina—marques Don Hernato Cortes.

(men in chains along the right side of the page)
Fig. 2.—(Seis figuras.) 1. San Pablo Tlatóque omentin Tecochtly y Mexitly [=] De San Pablo Caballeros dos [Nombres proprios, lo mismo que el siguiente.—El segundo de los intérpretes lee Metztli y traduce Caballero Luna; y en el que sique Caballero encadenado.]—2. Tecochtly Tecomecatl.—3. San Andres Tlatóque Quauitzcuintzin [Perrito de palo.] [=] de S. Andres Señor—4. Ynic ome ixcouamani [=] A los dos primeros.—5. Iniquen in couapixqui. [=] Estos guarda sierpes.—6. Sancta María ychan. Quetzalmazatzin [Parado ó postura de Venado.] [=] De Santa María natural

(man with a dog on a chain, attacking a man)
Fig. 3.—Tecpan micque Tlalchiachteotzin [=] Del Palacio muerto es [El Sr. Galicia dice que esta última palabra es nombre proprio, y D. Francisco Rosales traduce todo este pasage así: Lugar de ejecucion á muerte á vista del Dios.]

(place name with a coyote)
Fig. 4.—In momiquilique Coyohuacan Tlatóque chicome [=] Murieron de Cuyoacan Caballeros siete

(next to the man with a sword)
Fig. 5 En el espacio blanco donde está colocado el número se lee lo siguiente:
Inichquac omicque Tlahtoque chicomentin: niman Cortes q’ tlatocatlali Dabia temetzinca chiquepoualtica on catca: niman nò compiloco in Dabia.—Auh niman contlali yn Don Rodrigo Xochitototzintli [El mismo traduce aquí:--Flor de pajarito parpareador, y el Sr. Galicia—Avecita floreada.], ixquelle maquelle in Chololan chane. [=] Cuando murieron los señores siete luego Cortes dividió la real tierra á Tapia solo ciento sesenta habia: luego vino á colgar Tapia Y despues púsolo á Don [Xochitototzintli] en realidad de verdad de Cholula natural

(over the man with the sword)
Sobre la cabeza de la primera figura se lee—Andres de Dabia; y sobre la tercera, que tiene por divisa de pájaro, --D. Rodrigo Sochitotozintli

(over the line of "zero's")
Fig. 6—Sobre la linea de ceros que alli se ve partida por una cruz, hay la siguiente leyenda:
Ynacico Marques ya cempoali xihuitl once axcan mauhxiuyoc in ya micque Tlatoque [=] Vino á dar el Marques a los quarenta años es decir ahora á los quatro años de muertos los caballeros.

(8) Remembering ten of anything

2006-09-13T15:21:00.000-07:00

This might have been part of the artist's explanation, since a statement that people have difficulty remembering ten things could have been proved by the observation that they have trouble remembering the Ten Commandments. A counter-argument could have been that people counted on their fingers both in Europe and New Spain so it shouldn't have been too difficult. Hands showing five fingers (or not) are mnemonics in several places in the triptych.

(7) São Tomé maps

2006-08-31T03:32:00.000-07:00

Sources of the maps on the anonymus artists page:

The map in the postcard is from Robert Garfield, A history of São Tomé Island, 1470-1655: the key to Guinea (Mellen Research University Press, c. 1992).

The Hondius map is from the University of Florida

Hondius, Jodocus, 1563-1612. Gvinea. London : Samual Purchas, 1625.
Description: 1 map. : col. ; 14.5 x 18.5 cm.
Notes: English version of 1621 map done for Atlas Minor. Mercator-Hondius. Norwich #316a.
This printing is on page 1558 of Purchas his Pilgrimes with text and title outside of map border "Hondivs his Map of Guinea." Has inset of IS. THOMAE.
Early Map ALW1665

The modern map is from : www.sao-tome.com/english.html

(6) clarification re the postcard

2006-08-30T18:43:00.000-07:00

The discussion of Martin Luther's commentary on Jonah isn't posted yet, but it will be an important key to the interpretation of The Garden of Delights/El Jardín de las Delicias. More on nahui tochtli is also still to come, but for the moment the el bosco blog is still stuck in 1520.

(5) haywain wheels; Leonardo da Vinci

2006-08-29T23:08:00.000-07:00

The haywain seems to either go nowhere or crush people. The Haywain triptychs also include a murder scene from Leonardo's lost (or perhaps only hidden) Battle of Anghiari. The same scene was transformed into a picture of a doctor saving a patient in The Garden of Delights/El Jardín de las Delicias center panel (which includes no wheels).

(4) Yates, Carruthers, Harry Bosch

2006-08-20T00:39:00.000-07:00

The most useful books on medieval commentaries on the Rhetorica Ad Herennium and later memory systems are Frances Yates, The Art of Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966) and Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Mary Carruthers has also written The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400-1200 (Cambridge, UC: Cambridge University Press, 1998)and, with Jan M. Ziolkowski, edited The Medieval Craft of Memory: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). Her books were recommended to me by Larry Silver, whose book Hieronymus Bosch will be published later this year. Another interesting book on memory, which focuses on a later time period and on exporting memory to a non-European setting, is Jonathan D. Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (New York, NY: Viking Penguin, 1984). Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels are widely available new, in mass market paperbacks, translated into several languages, and on tape.

(3) Prudence

2006-08-11T22:58:00.000-07:00

Prudence is the knowledge of what is good, what is bad and what is neither good nor bad. Its parts are memory, intelligence, foresight (memoria, intelligentia, providentia). Memory is the faculty by which the mind recalls what has happened. Intelligence is the faculty by which it ascertains what is. Foresight is the faculty by which it is seen that something is going to occur before it occurs. Cicero, De inventione, II, liii, 160 (trans. H. M. Hubbell in the Loeb edition), cited by Frances Yates in The Art of Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), p. 20.

SI PRVDENS ESSE CVPIS, IN FVTVRVM PROSPECTVM OSTENDE, ET QUAE POSSVNT CONTINGERE, ANIMO TVO CUNCTA PROPONE. If you wish to be prudent, think of the future, and put your mind to all possible contingencies. The print is no. 136 in René van Bastelaer, The Prints of Pieter Bruegel The Elder, Catalogue Raisonné (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, 1992), p. 182; the translation is by Kay Cashman.

(2) The Alchemist

2006-08-02T22:57:00.000-07:00

The Alchemist (nos. 8 and 9 in the el bosco miscellanea blog) is no. 197 in René van Bastelaer, The Prints of Pieter Bruegel The Elder, Catalogue Raisonné, translated and revised by me (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, 1992), and the following is excerpted from a computer backup copy. Bastelaer attributed the engraving to Philip Galle. The first state, published by Hieronymus Cock, had a vague and obscure Latin legend:

DEBENT IGNARI RES FERRE ET POST OPERARI
IVS LAPIDIS CARI VILIS SED DENIQUE RARI
VNICA RES CERTA VILIS SED VBIQUE REPERTA

QVATUOR INSERTA NATURIS IN NVBE REFERTA
NVLLA MINERALIS RES EST VBI PRINCIPALIS
SED TALIS QUVALIS REPERITVR VBIQUE LOCALIS

Cock apparently published a revised state with lospital added to identify the hospital, and a lament by the amateur alchemist in French, printed on a separate strip of paper and pasted underneath the Latin verses:

L’art Alchemiste ha son nom bien à plain,
Le bien d’autruy & le nostre s’y pert,
De faim mourons, n’ayant pitance ou pain
Tous dessires allons comme il appert
Malheureux est qui à tel art s’assert.

Voyez en hault comme bien cont receuz
Par Madame la bonne hospitalliere
Tous ceulx qui sont par cest art cy deceuz
Comme la chose est bien coustumiere,
Hereulx sont ceulx qui s’en tirent arriere.

Ceste fois cy encoir’veulx je esprouuer
De cherchcr l’art, cest tout mon pensement
Si à coup je ne le puis truuer
Ie brusleray mes livres, puis vrayement
A l’hospital men yray briefuement.

I’enraige au vif voyant que nostre bien
Par ce sot cy en la cendre demeure
Crediet perdons, en bourse n’auons rien
En la fumee est tout fondu pour l’heure
A l’hospital irons, cest chose seure.

On a third state, Hieronymus Cock's name was erased. The fourth and fifth states, published by T. Galle and I. Galle, still have the Latin (at least in the T. Galle version illustrated on p. 265) but also have have even simpler bilingual French and Dutch captions that call the alchemist a fool:

Voy comme ce folastre en ses fioles distille
Le sang de ses enfans, ses tresors et ses sens;
Voy comme il cherche apres la recherche inutile
Du mercure son pain aueque ses enfants.

Den Alcomist “seer veel verquist” aen goet en tyt
Ghelt, goet en schat “heeft hy ghehat” maer is nu quyt
Hy vint int vier “gans niet een sier” dat syn bederuen
In d’eynde dan “moet hy erm man” int gasthuys steruen.

(1) books on Hieronymus Bosch

2006-08-02T01:26:00.000-07:00