Illusion and Deception Construction of a Proverb in Hieronymus Bosch's
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Illusion and Deception Construction of a Proverb in Hieronymus Bosch’s The Conjurer Elina Gertsman “Ce visiteur encore inconnu […] qui serait peut-étre une déception.” —Jules Romains, Poèmes Introduction hard to determine; both male and female traits are ambigu- The Conjurer, one of Hieronymus Bosch’s most enigmatic ously blended together to create an androgynous figure.4 This paintings, has long been a subject of scholarly interest. Often genderless person may be taken to represent all humanity, both considered to be a genre painting with a moralizing purpose men and women; in a sense, this is the Flemish Elckerlyc or a humorous little scene inspired by a real-life situation, this (Everyman) of the fifteenth-century morality play by the same work has also been linked to medieval fables, interpreted in name.5 A large key hangs from Elckerlyc’s belt, as does a purse, astrological terms, and considered as a representation of an which is in the process of being snatched by the trickster’s anti-Mass.1 This study will analyze the iconography of the assistant; neither the dunce nor the crowd, staring at the con- Conjurer to show that the painting, on the level of composi- jurer with gullible stupidity, notices anything.6 Among the tion and with the help of constant inversion and references to crowd stand a nun and a child with a toy windmill who seems verbal similes and metaphors, represents its own proverb. By more amused by the tricked Elckerlyc’s face than by the trick placing the painting in the artistic and theological contexts of itself: he is staring into the simpleton’s mouth. The table be- fifteenth-century Flanders, this paper demonstrates that the tween the magician and his victim is set with various para- Conjurer constantly calls for its own re-interpretation, subse- phernalia—beakers, balls, and a wand; a hoop leans against quently revealing shifting layers of meaning. it. A small dog in a fool’s cap, with a belt adorned with bells, A reliable copy of the lost original, the Conjurer is now sits at the conjurer’s feet. At the magician’s waist hangs a found in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in the Musée Municipal peculiar-looking basket with an owl visible within. A small (Figure 1).2 The painting can be only approximately situated frog, sitting on the table, seems to be as hypnotized by the ball in the late 1480s, and its patron is unknown, a fact that fur- in the magician’s outstretched hand as the simpleton is. There ther complicates the analysis of this already complex image.3 certainly is an ironic relationship between the shiny eyes of The small oil-on-wood, measuring 53 x 65 cm, presents the the fool and the white gleaming spots of the frog’s eyes. The viewer with a conjurer entertaining a crowd by making a frog horizon is blocked by a wall, parallel to the painting’s picture jump out of a simpleton’s mouth. The sex of this onlooker is plane, its monotony broken by occasional sprouts of vegeta- I would like to thank Robert Carroll and Professor Jodi Cranston for their private collection in California. For further information on these copies see editorial help on various drafts of this paper. I also wish to thank the FSU Gerd Unverhefrt, Hieronymus Bosch: die Rezeption seiner Kunst in führen faculty for inviting me to present this paper at their annual symposium. 16 Jahrhundert (Berlin: Mann, 1980) 100-114 and Darriulat 15-19. 1 For the Conjurer as a genre scene, please see F. Schmidt-Degener, “Un 3 Carl Linfert, Hieronymus Bosch (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Pub- Tableau de Jérome Bosch au Musée Municipale de Saint-Germain-en- lishers, 1972) 9. Laye,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts I (1906): 153 and Walter Gibson, Hieronymus Bosch (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991) 24-25. Schmidt- 4 The identity of the simpleton has been debated; it is not clear whether the Degener perceives the painting as a warning to the simple folk against the tricked person is a man or a woman. Although the facial features look male, trickster who will take your money and turn you into a laughing stock for the costume identifies the onlooker as a female. For those who see this the children, while Gibson compares it to genre scenes found among Dutch person as a woman, see Dirk Bax, “Bezwaren tegen L. B. Philip’s illuminated manuscripts, especially those executed by the Master of Evert interpretatie van Jeroen Bosch’ marskramer, goochelaar, jeisnijder en van Soundenbalch, who infused jocularity into his miniatures. For the par- voorgrond van hooiwagenpaneel,” Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek allel between the Conjurer and a medieval fable about a woman who be- 13 (1962): 1-55. came pregnant by a toad, please see the monograph by Jacques Darriulat, Jérôme Bosch et la fable populaire (Paris: Lagune, 1995). Andrew Pigler 5 Written sometime before the end of the fifteenth-century, the Flemish play perceives the protagonists of the Conjurer as Luna’s children in “Astrology “Elckerlyc” (as well as its English counterpart “Everyman”) is, as Arthur and Jerome Bosch,” Burlington Magazine 92 (1950): 132-136. Finally, Cawley has aptly put it, “the spiritual biography of a microcosm man.” for the imagery of the painting as an anti-Mass, see Jeffrey Hamburger, Arthur C. Cawley, Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays (New York: E. “Bosch’s Conjuror: an Attack on Magic and Sacramental Heresy,” Simiolus P. Dutton, 1959) XV. XIV/1 (1984): 4-23. 6 Indeed Charles de Tolnay once compared the crowd with a kind of an inde- 2 Copies of the Conjurer are now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the fensible hydra at the mercy of preposterous magic in his Hieronymus Bosch Nicholson Gallery in New York, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and a (New York: Reynal and Company, 1966) 16. 31 ATHANOR XXII ELINA GERTSMAN tion and a circular aperture with a metal bar dividing the moon teenth-century woodcuts.11 Determined by the limitations of in half. A long-beaked bird appears in this opening, its head the medium, and especially by that of quantity, these prints turned to the sky. had to be executed in a rather concise manner, which led to the setting of certain canons for the woodcut illustrations that The First Deception: From Genre Painting popularized the symbolic form.12 Just as the key hanging at to Iniquitous Parody the man’s waist came to denote Saint Peter, so did a lonely Often considered a didactic genre scene, the Conjurer ap- figure with a raised hand counterbalanced by the crowd of pears to have been based on two Flemish proverbs.7 The first spectators become a standard for representing Christ perform- states: “He who lets himself be fooled by conjuring tricks loses ing a miracle or preaching the Word.13 Examples of such com- his money and becomes the laughing stock of children.”8 The position are numerous; it suffices to list only a few. Pictorial child with a toy windmill and the magician’s confederate who structures similar to Bosch’s the Conjurer are found in Die steals the dunce’s money seem to have directly materialized Neue Ehe Und Das Passional Von Jesu “Christ Healing a Sick out of this proverb. Another one, “No one is so much a fool as Man” and in Augsburg Plenarium “Christ Addressing the a willful fool,” would also indicate that the tricked Elckerlyc, Pharisees” (Figures 2 and 3), where the holy protagonist on who, if not willfully, at least willingly submitted to the the right is counter-balanced by the mesmerized crowd on the conjurer’s spectacle and the subsequent theft, is doubly ob- left.14 Of special interest are woodcuts, with representations tuse. The latter saying comes from Proverbia Communia, a of Christ casting out demons, found, for instance, in the same collection of proverbs published c. 1480, right around the time Augsburg Plenarium and in Auslegung des Lebens Jesu Christi of the creation of The Conjurer, in ’s Hertogenbosch, the from Ulm (Figures 4 and 5).15 There, little demons jumping painter’s native town.9 Widely distributed, Proverbia out of men’s mouths are reminiscent of Bosch’s frog getting Communia was no doubt known to Bosch and his contempo- ready to jump from the dunce’s lips. The resemblance is even raries, and might have inspired the Saint-Germain-en-Laye more remarkable since in the woodcuts others are assisting piece. Such a connection with an adage is not unprecedented the miracle by holding up the afflicted men, not unlike the in Bosch’s oeuvre; for instance, his Hay Wagon comes directly magician’s associate “assists” the conjurer’s trick by holding out of the Flemish proverb “The world is a haystack, and each up the Elckerlyc’s purse. man plucks from it what he can.”10 The Conjurer, then, appears as a parody of a miracle or However, the indices are evident that the Conjurer is not preaching scene, and as such it gains an inverted meaning. A merely a didactic genre painting based, perhaps, on a couple representation of Christ healing the sick or addressing people of Flemish sayings. Instead of relying on a known proverb, has been transformed into an evil magician, an impostor. The the painting begins to construct a maxim of its own by using conjurer, dressed in a scarlet caftan, reminiscent of a minister’s both symbolic and compositional devices. Firstly, the compo- clothes, extends his hand as if for blessing, but instead a little sition distorts and transforms the role of the magician as a ball, an instrument of hypnosis, is placed in this “benedictory” mere trickster and thief.