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The Triumph of Sin
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This curious vehicle may remind us of the ship which Brant
employs in his »Ship of Fools«, but Bosch's waggonload of
hay is not simply an expeditious means of getting to Hell;
it illustrates, in fact, one specific aspect of human
frailty of which hay was a traditional symbol. A
Netherlandish song of about 1470 tells us that God has
heaped up good things on the earth like a stack of hay for
the benefit of all men, but that each man wants to keep it
all to himself. But since hay is of little value, it also
symbolizes the worthlessness of all worldly gain. This is
certainly the meaning of the allegorical haycarts which
appeared in several Flemish engravings after 1550. A haycart
also formed part of a religious procession at Antwerp in
1563; according to a contemporary description, it was ridden
by a devil named Deceitful, and followed by all sorts of men
plucking the hay, so as to show that worldly possessions are
»al hoy« (all hay). »ln the end it is >al hoy<«, echoes a
song of the same period.
All these haycarts appeared some years after Bosch's death,
most probably inspired by his »Haywain« triptych, but it is
reasonable to assume that the latter work possessed the same
significance. The fact that the haycart of 1563 was a
carnival waggon has led some scholars to suggest that Bosch,
in turn, was influenced by similar floats. However this may
be, the general arrangement of his haywain with its many
attendants recalls the allegorical processions, especially
the »Triumphs« of Francesco Petrarch, which appear in so
many tapestries and engravings of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. Bosch may have had such examples in
mind when he composed his own Triumph of Sin.
Like the »Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins«, thus, the »Haywain«
shows mankind given over to sin, completely unmindful of
God's law and oblivious to the fate which he has prepared
for them. In this image, however, Bosch focuses on one of
the Deadly Sins: the desire for worldly gain, or Avarice,
whose sub-categories are elaborated in the adjacent figure
groups very much as they are in the old handbooks on the
Virtues and Vices. As we are warned in the »King'sDream«,
written by Laurent Gallus in 1279, Avarice leads to discord,
violence and even murder, all of which are graphically
depicted in the open space before the cart. If the princes
and prelates complacently jog along behind the cart, holding
themselves aloof from this struggle, it is because the
haystack is, so to speak, already in their possession; they
are guilty of the sin of Pride. Avarice also leads men to
cheat and deceive; the man wearing a tall hat and
accompanied by a child at lower left is most likely a false
beggar, like the ones patronized by Old Avarice in
Deguilleville's »Pilgrimage of the Life of Man«. The quack
physician in the centre has set up his table with charts und
jars designed to impress his victim; the purse at his side
stuffed with hay alludes to his ill-gotten gains. Several
nuns at lower right push hay into a large bag, supervised by
a seated monk whose gluttonous tendencies are revealed by
his ample waist.
The meaning of some of the other groups remains unclear, and
we may also wonder at the presence of the lovers on top of
the haystack. That they illustrate the sin of Lust we know
from the appearance of similar figures in the Prado
»Tabletop«, but it might be argued that the pursuit of the
pleasures of the flesh involves the expenditure rather than
the accumulation of earthly goods. A class distinction may
perhaps be observed between the rustic couple kissing in the
bushes and the more elegantly dressed group making music.
Their music is certainly that of the flesh, for the devil
near by, piping some lascivious tune through his nose, has
already lured their attention from the angel praying at the
left.
Such details serve to reinforce Bosch's basic theme of the
triumph of Avarice; and the image of the haywain itself has
yet another metaphorical function. In the sixteenth century,
hay also possessed connotations of falsehood and deceit, and
to »drive the haywain« with someone was to mock or cheat
him. When we read that the demon who rode on the haywain of
1563 was called »Deceitful«, and note that the musical devil
on top of the Prado haywain is blue, the traditional colour
of deceit, the full implications of Bosch's load of hay
become clear. Not only have wordly goods and honours no
intrinsic value, they are also employed by Satan and his
army as bait to lure men to destruction.
In composition, the Hellscape of the right wing of the »Haywain«
stands between the discursive panorama of the Vienna »Last
Judgment« and the monumental simplicity of the »Hell« panel
at Venice. Reminiscent of the latter work, too, are the tall
blasted ruin silhouetted against the flaming background and
the damned souls struggling helplessly in the lake below,
although the foreground is dominated by a new motif, a
circular tower whose process of construction is shown in
circumstantial detail. One demon climbs a ladder with fresh
mortar for the devil masons on the scaffolding above, while
a black-skinned companion raises a floor beam with a hoist.
The significance of this feverish activity is not clear.
Towers abound in medieval descriptions of Hell, but the
devils are usually too busy ministering to their victims to
engage in such architectural enterprises. However, St
Gregory reports a vision of Heaven in which houses were
constructed of golden bricks, each brick representing an »almsdeed«
or charitable act by someone on earth, and were intended to
receive the souls of the good. Perhaps Bosch has represented
the hellish counterpart of these heavenly mansions, in which
avarice, and not almsdeed, supplies the stones. In his
account of the »Haywain« triptych in 1605, Siguenza
expresses a similar thought when he describes the tower as
being built to accommodate all those entering Hell; the
stones are the »souls of the wretched damned«. On the other
hand, Bosch's tower may be a parody of the infamous Tower of
Babel with which men sought to storm the gates of Heaven
itself. In this case it would symbolize Pride, the sin which
caused the fall of the Rebel Angels and which is exemplified
by the worldly prince and prelate and their retinue behind
the haywain.
Other punishments can calso be related to the sins
illustrated in the central panel. On the bridge leading to
the infernal tower, a squad of devils torments a poor naked
soul astride a cow. This hapless figure was probably
inspired by the vision of Tundale, who, during his tour of
Hell, was forced to lead a cow across a narrow bridge as
punishment for stealing one of his neighbour's cattle. On
the bridge he encountered those who had robbed churches and
committed other acts of sacrilege, a detail which may have
suggested the eucharistic chalice clutched by Bosch's
figure. The man on the ground with a toad gnawing his
genitals suffers the fate of lechers, while greed is
appropriately punished by a fish-like monster in the
foreground. Above him, a hunterdevil sounds his horn from
the left, his human quarry gutted like a rabbit and dangling
upside down from a pole. Several dogs rush ahead of their
master to bring down a couple beneath the bridge.
Complex though its ramifications may be, the basic meaning
of the »Haywain« is relatively simple. Even if we know
nothing about the metaphorical use of hay in the sixteenth
century, we can easily grasp the fact that Bosch is
commenting on an unpleasant aspect of human nature. But this
is not true of the triptych known variously as the »Garden
of Earthly Delights« or the »Earthly Paradise«.
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Triptych of Garden of Earthly Delights
c. 1500
Oil on panel, central panel: 220 x 195 cm, wings: 220 x 97 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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Triptych of Garden of Earthly Delights (central
panel)
c. 1500
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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In a park-like landscape under a clear sky, surrounded
by or inhabiting curious plant forms, the pale, naked human
forms engage in the joyous battle of the sexes in a
dreamlike contemplation of love, sexually enticing gestures
or postures and in explicitly sexual embrace. Accompanying
them are strange fruits, spherical or ovoid shapes and, in
the distance, five structures, strange accumulations of
forms, on or in which further sexual acrobatic exercises can
be seen. In the centre a circular pool in which a group of
naked females disport themselves is being circled by male
riders on a variety of beasts. A number of giant birds,
including the warning owl, and other curious animals are
also part of the scene. A fish, a symbol of lewdness, is in
the foreground. The curious overall effect of this pastoral
orgy is of peaceful innocence and a real delight. The
warning scene on the right wing makes it all the more
potent.
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Triptych of Garden of Earthly Delights (central panel
- detail)
c. 1500
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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 Nest of Owls
Pen and bistre, 140 x 196 mm
Museum Boumans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
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