|
THE PICTORIAL LANGUAGE OF HIERONYMUS BOSCH |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Notes to The Temptations of St. Anthony In Urchristentum I Caesaren Und Apostel by Bock [11] pp. 177-8 we find the following said about Judas: "The Messiah, whom he sought with intense devotion, really only stood before his soul as a greater Judas Maccabeus. He imagined that one day He would emerge, and accomplish a victorious miracle for the people by extinguishing with a mere movement of his hand the tangled relationships of political power, and setting up a universal, shining kingdom of God upon earth, enthroning himself in Jerusalem as its king and high priest. The betrayal was the last desperate attempt to compel Christ to perform that miracle for which Judas was waiting so impatiently, the revelation of the power of the Messiah." Figure 109 is reproduced here for comparison, it is a picture by Gaspard Isenman (1435-92). In this picture the vessel of the Holy Grail as well as the motif of the lantern is shown; this lantern will throw no more light, it is the symbol of the expiring spirituality of Judaism. As the painter Isenman was 15 years older than Bosch it seems likely that both drew their ideas from the same source. Strasbourg, Colmar and Basel lie in a region where we may expect to find traces of the Rosicrucian philosophy. In The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz; such regions are designated with golden rings, and said to be the home of those who are chosen [1] (pp. 45/46). Steiner has several times described those who do not attempt to develop a capacity for discrimination, but live by naive illusions, in this way. The Legenda Aurea. The "Golden Legend of the Saints, Told According to Written Evidence and Oral Traditions", was written by the Dominican Jacques, who was born in Voragine near Genoa (1230-98). He was bishop of Genoa from 1292. In the 15th century there appeared a mass of translations of this book into many languages. Because the work of Jacques de Voragine was generally known, and regarded as guaranteed Christian (although some individuals regarded the whole work as unspiritual and materialistic), the art of that time often referred to his writings [64].
Fig. 109. GASPARD ISENMAN, I435-1492: Christ in the Garden of Olives, the kiss of Judas. Colmar Musee d'Unterlinden, painted 1482-1484.
Fig. 110. After HIERONYMUS BOSCH. Adoration of the Shepherds (note the large sparrow above and to the right). Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum. [i] One of the three brothers, whose face can be clearly seen, has the faint trace of a bandage of dedication above the knee. (In section 6 a similar trace of a bandage can be seen on the leg of the young Anthony.) This face, the only clear one of the three brothers, is reminiscent of the face of the Prodigal Son. Various writers think it to be a portrait of the dead brother-in-law of Bosch. The remarkable thing is that the painter uses this face to give us a portrait of his own soul. He probably intends to conceal himself behind this face that no longer belongs to someone living. As has already been discussed in the earlier part of this book, Bosch characterised the states of soul of the people in his pictures by means of birds; here too he is drawing upon the most ancient traditions. For proof that he is here using the sparrow to illustrate the ordinary man's soul we show above a painting in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, that is judged to be a copy of a work by Bosch, but all the same is important to explain his iconography (Fig. 110). One of the three shepherds, who is looking round the corner, shows evidence of not too high an intelligence in his face; but also that he has an excess of the healthy feelings that live in ordinary people and which must not be underrated. In the right upper corner Bosch has painted a large male sparrow, the soul-picture of a simple man who has great, unclouded feelings. On the left inner wing of The Temptations of St. Anthony the following birds, among others, appear as expressions of human moods of soul:
The causal body, the fruit of former lives lived by the individual upon earth, has been painted by Bosch as a ball on the end of the string of life; the idea may have been taken from the fruit of a tree, tabernaemontana alternifolia. Figure III from Plants of the Bible [41] shows this tree, which was regarded by the Portuguese on the island of Ceylon as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It bears fruits which resemble an apple that has had a bite taken out of it; these fruits are much larger than those of plane-trees which of course also hang by a thread. It remains an open question whether a drawing of this tree was known to Bosch; at least it becomes evident that essentially nothing can be depicted that has not ultimately been taken from nature, even if the combination of such things seems to the beholder to be somewhat strange in relation to their usual appearance on earth, as is the case with the paintings of Bosch. Illustration from the Tabula Smaragdina Figure 112 shows how the presentation of an idea stemming from the alchemists can be akin to a painting. It comes from the Tabula Smaragdina. This schematic representation, handed down in an etching, has been chosen because the hart appears here in the form and stance and with the same symbolic meaning as on the right inner wing of The Hay Wain tryptich by Jeroen [iii] Bosch (see Fig. 113 & ref. 65, p. 53) and on the1eft inner wing of the Lisbon altar [iv] (see Fig. 114).
Fig. 111. DIVI LADNER: Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. From Plants of the Bible [41]. By kind permission of St. Martin's Press, New York.
Fig. 112. MATTHAUS MERIAN. Symbolic representation with the text of the Tabula Smaragdina. Etching 1698. Published by permission of Philosophical Research Society, L.A. California, U.S.A. From "The Secret Teachings of all Ages", by Manley P. Hall.
Fig. 113. HIERONYMUS BOSCH: Hart on the right inner wing of The Hay Wain Triptych. Madrid, Prado Museum.
Fig. 114. HIERONYMUS BOSCH: Hart on the lift inner wing of The Temptations of St. Anthony.
The hart appears in Bosch's pictures in two different postures: one is that in which he stands naturally on his four feet: in the second however he is erect on his hind legs, a humanised attitude that points to a supersensible meaning. The first posture expresses that the soul has united itself completely with the (gravity-laden earthly) body, although it can direct itself upwards as well as downwards. If a looser union between soul and body is to be represented however, Bosch paints the hart in the attitude of a man, who can stand with his head in the heavens, and his feet upon the earth, as is shown in this picture from the Tabula Smaragdina (Fig. 112). In either case the hart expresses the union of man's soul and body, while the unbound soul which is free, is regarded as a more bird-like creature, because in nature the birds are much less bound to the earth and can remain suspended in the air. The erect stag represents a stage between two situations, which is also indicated by the symbol of the chicken. The chicken, that is discussed in section 37, is a bird but it is unable to fly, as the soul can in the supersensible realm when it is free from its body. This etching of the Tabula Smaragdina is a far cry from what we understand by painting; yet it is more closely related to art than e.g. most of the drawings that occur in Mutus Liber, or Secret Signs of the Rosicrucians, [22] etc. In order now to demonstrate the relationship between the art of Bosch the painter, and the significance of an illustration from the Ars Chymia, we must formulate an explanation, albeit an incomplete one, of the main ideas that can be found in this picture which was designed for study. The main figure in the foreground represents the sage, the master alchemist, who searches for the connection between the spirit and matter both in and around himself. He understands that much of the original physiological organisation of man before the Fall is still present as described in the oldest text of Genesis by Moses. There it says that man was both male and female (Genesis 1/27) i.e. that in the man of Paradise who did not as yet inhabit a physical body, there had not been any division of the sexes. The conviction that man still unites within himself a male and a female aspect of being is symbolised here, for to the left of the picture there is shown the "man in man", on the right "the woman in man". Both however share the rhythms of life, as is shown by the two lions with only one common head, drawn beneath the alchemist in the centre. The rhythms of breathing and the circulation are represented by the lion symbol, the common head indicates that we are dealing here with only one being, with the lower and higher parts of man on earth. It is the lower part that is split into diverse sexes. On the left the naked human male figure represents the human body as it was before the Fall, and also his ego. The Phoenix, which is designated by its title, contains the concept that a human being, an ego, lives in a physical form and, when the appropriate time comes, can arise from the ashes of its body to reappear rejuvenated. The Phoenix is holding two earth spheres under its wings, i.e. the representations of only two elements of the earth. The element of light or air is connected with the astral world, the world of the stars; the element of fire or warmth with the ego-organisation of man [51]. Both the elements of fire and air, as they were always called in the language of the alchemists, belong to the masculine principle of the human being; they represent the active creative forces of the soul and spirit. The heraldic lion opposite the masculine figure (the sun appears between them) represents the heart in the rhythmic organism of man, the lion's heart, that is also necessary for the courage of spiritual cognition, and to which we can appeal as the sun in man, that is able to warm and illuminate everything. The lion as well as the man are standing on a star with seven points because all that was connected with the planets was conceived as being sevenfold. The left hand of the man is bound by a chain that leads through the sign of the raven to the name of the Father God above; the significance of the raven will be shown later. The feminine figure on the right side represents the forces of life and growth in the body. The explanation is as on the left, for here we find aquila (designated by the written name), which is the symbol characterising the soul that can strive toward ever higher regions, but is still bound to the physical growing aspect of natural man. This eagle has under his wings two other elements of the earth: water, and earth. Here too there are drawn two earth spheres, which indicate the realms of life, of water, (the waterman on the left), and the solid region of the earth: the soul that is living on the earth needs these two elements or conditions of the earthly realm for its existence in physical form. Just as the courage for higher knowledge, the heraldic lion in man, belongs to the Sun, so that faculty of the soul that enables one to be at home in two worlds belongs to the Moon. For this reason this feminine quality of man is able to move over the lovely blossoming earth's surface and all that grows and lives there, with mercurial agility, and also to waft into higher spheres, an ability that is symbolised by the psychopompos, the hart. For this reason we find here the moon between the female figure and the psychopompos. The moon is ultimately connected with all feminine aspects of life. It cannot be surprising therefore that a garment of stars hangs from the woman's shoulders, and that she is drawn in graceful pose, nor that the hart (the symbol of the soul that is bound to the body), bears twelve stars in his antlers. The soul comes to earth beneath one of the twelve Signs of the Zodiac, passes through all of them, and has brought with it something from each of them. The erect hart is holding a cloverleaf in his left hand. This means that the soul has brought with it the stamp of that trinity that comes to expression in thinking feeling and will, in the regions of the head, the chest, and the limbs. Like the man, the woman is connected with the sign of God the Father but by the right hand. The alchemist, who is standing at the centre in the pose of one meditating, is surrounded by a garden, similar to those in which the Virgin Mary is often shown. This vegetative sphere, which can also be called the etheric thought world, shows as does his pose, that he is sunk in thought; the planetary signs in the trees show the influences that are working upon him. Only the upper half of the sun fire is drawn as the natural sun; within this there are two other sun-forms, together they are called the triple sun in the language of the Rosicrucians. The sphere that it encloses contains the name of the Father God; to the left there is the Lamb, as the emblem of the Son; to the right the Dove, as the emblem of the Holy Spirit; between these there are the various groups of the angelic hierarchies. This realm is very obviously separated from the lower half of the sphere in which the fixed stars and the seven planets are shown at the lower edge, surrounded by a circle of clouds. A series of animal symbols leads inwards. They are connected with the history of the development of the soul of man. These must not be taken as in any definite order or sequence. They appear simultaneously, and in confusion. They can be explained as follows:
The twelve keys of Basilius Valentinus are but scantily reproduced in this etching, therefore their explanation is necessarily sketchy and aphoristic, because the animal symbols probably derive from traditions that were ancient already in his time. The lines that lead from the man and the woman to these symbols now become clearer: That from the man is directed towards the area between the raven and the swan, that from the woman towards the area that lies between the self-sacrificing quality of the pelican, and the highest form of love. The two poles become one in the realm of God the Father, where the lines meet. The interior of the upper and the lower circles contains the zodiacal signs above and below the signs of the planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury. In the middle there is the Divine Triangle with the sign of Mercury and much else that would take us far beyond the present terms of reference. It need scarcely be said that this picture, which has been taken from the Tabula Smaragdina Hermetis, contains a multitude of ideas and presents a whole world philosophy in the form of symbols. Chinese, Tibetans, and other oriental people have also painted such tablets for the purpose of spiritual teaching, but theirs are fashioned more artistically than the Europeans were able to create them at that time. It can easily be imagined that there might have been a longing in some individual, for instance Jacob von Almaengien, who knew the Eastern didactic representations, to commission a painter such as Bosch to paint The Hay Wain or The Hortus Deliciarum [v], but in the sense of the Christians who were dedicated to St. John, so that in one act a work of art could be created as well as a picture from which people could be taught. The present work, The Temptations of St. Anthony seems to us to have been created by Bosch for another reason. Jurgis Baltrusaitis, in his book Le Moyen Age Fantastique [4], has clearly demonstrated the oriental influence on art in the Middle Ages, and also in the paintings of Bosch; he did not discuss the world philosophy which underlies this, as he was only interested in questions of artistic style. For details of the exoteric prehistory and history of the Tabula the reader is referred to Holmyard [31]. This writer found a ninth century text from Jabir (another was also found by Ruska about 1923,) which is ascribed to Apollonius of Tyana, and he mentions that a Latin translation was generally well known throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. Much about the esoteric background of the alchemists will be found in a book by Beckh [7]. Here the most profound truths are discussed in a clear precise and spiritual- scientific way, which enables the reader to learn to distinguish what is pure from the impure in Alchemy. The real alchemists themselves always emphasise the connection between their chymical mysteries and the Christ Mysteries, between the philosopher's stone and the stone described by Christ as "the head of the corner" (Luke 20, 17). Thus Angelus Silesius:
In ref. 65 it was shown that the toad is a symbol for the fact that while he is on the earth a human being is a sexual creature. Several examples have been given. Here are just two illustrations which demonstrate that in the time of Bosch the toad often appeared as the symbol of sexuality. (Fig.115 and Fig. 116.) The toad is found in the position of the sexual organs. Other examples can be found on graves at Marburg (Germany), in Wels and Salzburg (Austria), etc.
Fig. 115. MATHIS NEITHAT called "GRUNEWALD", 1455-1528 Les amants Trepasses. The toad as the symbol of sexuality. A painting which was completed about 1470. Strasbourg Musee de l'Oevre, Notre·Dame.
Fig. 116. Master I. A. VAN ZWOLLE "Memento Mori". NOTE 10, Section 16, The Porcupine Like the Garter, or band of dedication (see The Prodigal Son) the porcupine was also used by a royal house as the emblem of an Order. In 1394 Louis de France, Duke of Orleans, instituted an Order to celebrate the birth of his son, it was called L'Ordre du Pore-Epic. Fig. 117 shows the remains of two emblematic porcupines that can still be seen in Dijon, another is at Blois, France. Members of the Order wore a ring bearing an agate carved with a porcupine. In 1407 Louis de France was murdered, most probably because his ideas did not fit in with those of the Church in his day, and so his Order was gradually forgotten. It could well have been an answer from France to the establishment of the Order of the Garter by Edward III in England (1350). In both countries therefore, an esoteric symbol was used for exoteric purposes, yet at their beginning both these Orders still had the stamp and the glow of the spiritual meaning that was originally theirs. This meaning has often been misunderstood. In Collins [18] Chapter IV we find that the hedgehog typifies evil, and a few lines further one reference is made to Fig. 118. As a contradiction to this it is also said that the hedgehog is shown eating the grapes of a common vine; three dogs are baying at him to frighten him off. The hedgehog seems to be quite imperturbable, because he is aware that he is able to resist one or all three of the dogs together. Here Collins is quite correct, and we can now understand why the initiate has no cause to be afraid of "dogs" while he is eating of the fruit of the "true vine". However, the hare, the forerunner of the hedgehog has good cause to fear the dogs, as was shown in Sections 24-6 of The Prodigal Son. This comment from Collins shows that many interesting indications can be found in works such as his Symbolism of Animals and Birds even when awareness of the true content of the pictures is clouded by conventional prejudice.
Fig. 117. Stone carved porcupines. From about the time of Louis XII (1478-1515), King of France. Dijon, Musee Archeologique.
Fig. 118. Hedgehog and dogs. Childrey, Berkshire, England [vi] A. H. Collins [18]. In the "Grootwoordenboek van Zinnebeelden of Beeldspraek d.d. 1750" [45] the following is written about the hedgehog: "In Pollux, under the word 'hedgehog' one finds mention of a certain box or container, within which the reports of witnesses delivered before the Law were sealed up. These boxes were made of copper or stone-ware, and as Pierius Valerianus believes he knows from Aristophanes (explained in Vesap about 1427), they were in the form of a hedgehog or porcupine, to show by their very shape that it was forbidden to touch their contents without official authorisation; illegal handling of their content was stringently punished, as it should be plain to all from the very form of the boxes that they contained holy or secret objects." It can be deduced from the writings of Demosthenes (Olympiod sub fin) that not only legal matters but also other secret things were kept safe in such a "hedgehog". "A hedgehog, or iron porcupine needs no borrowed weapons to protect its life, it attacks no-one, it only draws itself together and in this manner defends itself". It is clear that this refers to a sanctuary or shrine of the Mysteries; the surprising thing is that merely the form of a hedgehog or porcupine sufficed to suggest inviolability. We might expect that Roemer Visscher would not have failed to mention the hedgehog as a typical Rosicrucian symbol in his book Sinnepoppen [63]. And indeed we find in book II No. XXV a small picture (Fig. 119) with a superscription something like the following, freely translated: "Layoff him."
Laet legghen dat hachjen. "One who is truly brave cannot be moved, even if he is attacked by many enemies. He spreads out his barbs and cannot be overcome if he remains like that; just as the hedgehog between two dogs is protected by his barbs, thus he too cannot be vanquished". Maarten de Vos (1532-1603) who is spiritually related to Bosch, even painted the porcupine by the figure of Jehovah in his picture of the expulsion from Paradise. (See Fig. 120.) It must also be remembered here that any symbol, like a coin, has two sides; the one that is turned towards the earth, and the spiritual one. For the hedgehog that side that is turned towards the earth takes the form of avarice, or greed, which would fain possess all that exists. This same characteristic transposed into the spiritual realm produces the initiate, with all-encompassing knowledge, and the desire to give this to as many others as possible. The same two-sidedness goes for the hare, which will be discussed below. (Note 14.)
Fig. 120. JOH SADELER. Etching after Marten (Maarten) de Vos. The works of Bosch and many other painters of his time are full of plants, fruits and flowers used as symbols, and this also offers a vast area for further research. Many art historians have already collected interesting material on the language of flowers in general, e.g. Elizabeth Wolffhart [66], but despite this the specific meaning for the symbolism of the Rosicrucians and the alchemists of the 15-16th centuries has so far not been explored. As we have recognised in Bosch a true painter of the Rosicrucians, and his language in this sense can be considered to be standard, we hope that other students will find it possible to immerse themselves thoroughly in the study of this aspect, starting from the material offered here. Bock, in his book Urchristentum II [12] indicates one way in which the long-lost source of the original secret language of plants could be re-discovered. On page 101, where he calls Nazareth the town of the offspring of the root of Jesse, and mentions the leading Essenes, he writes: "It has been handed down to us that everywhere among the Essenes there were seers, who were consulted over important decisions of life. It is therefore probable that particularly through the advice of such seers, men and women were brought together for marriage. At the beginning of the 19th century the visionary Sister Katharina Emmerich [23], a nun, in her descriptions of the Life of the Virgin Mary gave a picture of how, among the Essenes, supersensible directives might have been sought and used for the union in marriage of individuals and the propagation of certain families." Something of what is described there might well contain actual historical facts. For example, the story that the seers who were to advise the people told them to sow certain seeds and then observed the growth of the germinating plants, in order to read from this the answers to their questions; one would have to admit that it really could have been like that. Plant-oracles, such as the gardens of Adonis, were common in connection with various cults of the ancient world. Plato's Phaedrus mentions that Socrates spoke of them. The significance of plants in cults is also indicated by Lurker [37] [vii]. He says: "In Gothic art the symbolic language of plants becomes particularly prominent". Konrad von Wurzburg in his Golden Smithy, wrote down poetic comparisons between the Virgin Mary and the various plants. He sings of Mary as the flowering lily, or as the beautiful blood of the almond tree. Healing herbs constantly appear in Gothic painting, and we can also understand why Konrad von Wurzburg designates the Virgin Mary as the blessed apothecary; after all her Son was the Saviour, the Divine Healer (Iatros). In the picture of Mary with Saints and Donors by the Master of the Life of Mary, the whole of the ground is covered by a carpet composed entirely of healing herbs etc." Lurker continues on page 17: "In old times the flowers symbolized the gods of spring and vegetation, and the mother goddesses. Legend tells of Adonis that while hunting he was killed by a boar, whereupon Aphrodite caused a flower, the anemone, to arise from his red blood. The gardens of Adonis (keptoi Adonidos) were grown as the symbol of growth and decay; these consisted of flowerpots or baskets, into which quick-growing and quick-dying plants were sown before the feast of Adonis. Isaiah [vii] sharply denounced the cult of Adonis in his prophecy about Damascus." [viii] The probable explanation for this denunciation by Isaiah is that at that time the etheric spiritual experience was no longer relevant as the physical incarnation of the Christ-Being was in preparation. Much aphoristic material is given by Lurker on this subject of the symbolism of plants, however he seems to omit all those that are particularly relevant to the secret language of the Rosicrucians and Alchemists and so obviously important to them, as e.g. poppy, carnation, strawberry, cherry, etc. [65]. It must always he remembered that a living symbol, like the living word, although taken from an essential reality, is constantly subject to slight changes due to the effects of time and modifications of language, and that a dictionary of symbols that would be valid for all people and all times is among the impossibilities of life. For this reason the meaning of a symbol can never he regarded as fixed for ever. Those who were able out of their own powers of insight to recognise pictorial images and who did not use them dogmatically, created symbols that other men can discover, because these pictorial images have been read in the spiritual world, and can he tested there by others. [27] Faust part II, 2nd Act, Laboratory scene (Homunculus, Wagner, Mephistopheles). Mephistopheles: [ix]
Several details in the yearbook of the Swedish Nautical Museum of 1942 [32] sufficiently support our hypothesis that at the beginning of the Renaissance all technical skills, also those in the realm of sailing, took a new direction.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
