Bosch at Palazzo Grimani
Santa Maria Formosa Castello 4858, Venice, December 19, 2010 – March 20, 2011.
An enormous billboard, startlingly placed on the Canal Grande of Venice, promotes an otherwise unpublicized exhibition of paintings by Hieronymus Bosch. The
Bosch paintings on view are densely significant and exquisitely well mounted. Placed in darkened rooms more usual for fragile works on paper, they are
under a delicate, non- reflective lighting. Cleaned and restored in 1990-92, they gleam splendidly.1 A sitting- bench is set directly before each
painting, so one reads every work like the page of a book. Previously behind reflective plate-glass, lost in the vast Palazzo Ducale, the paintings
once gathered for the Cardinal Domenico Grimani, are superbly accessible here. Each work is a puzzle-painting, eliciting almost endless questions. The
palace of the cardinal, caringly restored, now reveals its sixteenth-century frescoes and classicizing reliefs.
Problematic are the four painting fragments, The Earthly Paradise, and The Ascent of the Blessed, one pair, and The Fall of the Damned, and The Torments in Hell, a second pair. Two are damaged by cutting. On the Paradise panel, the Fountain
of Life is severed in mid-tower. On The Torments in Hell panel, the horizon line of the waters in Hell tilts downward some five degrees. Thus
the rectangle of the Torments panel is smaller than the original, and askew. Were these panels initially parts of tall triptych wings that were cut
into pieces, or were they separate paintings? Are they fragments of unrelated works, united in an ad hoc manner? They evince certain discontinuities of
figure type, color palette, and spatial depiction.
The heavenly tunnel of The Ascent tapers toward a distant circle of divine light. There tiny
kneeling figures of the blessed, escorted by angels, dissolve in a heavenly entropy. The celestial tunnel is related to astronomical diagrams of the
concentric heavenly spheres, and the paths of the planets -- scientific constructs of the era, seen in woodcut illustrations to early printed books of
the 1480s. There the concentric spheres, represented as circles tangent on one common side, create a tapered cylinder, very like the tunnel. As
beautiful painting, this vision of heavenly light transcends its sources, to rival the infernal fires so brilliantly painted by Bosch.
The Earthly Paradise is the setting of the Fall and Expulsion of Adam and Eve. There, after a stay in Limbo, the blessed wait to ascend into heaven at the Last Judgement,
as Hans Belting points out (2005). What were the painting’s original proportions? Its massive architectural fountain lacks organic arabesques, like
those on the Eden panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights. The deep landscape feels later than Bosch, by its color modulation and atmospheric
verisimilitude. Was this panel partially painted by another hand active in the family workshop? Is it a later imitation of the style of Bosch, which
bears the subtle signature of another time? Larger questions of multiple authorship are posed by several recent writers.2 The Fall of the Damned has a
shallower image of space, its figures closer to the surface of the panel. Similarly flat are the two coulisses of The Earthly Paradise, the foreground
hillock, and that of the fountain. Obvious damage and other inconsistencies raise important questions.
The Martyrdom of St. Liberata has vexed writers ever since Marcantonio Michiel mis-identified it in 1521, as St. Catherine with the Wheel. Names in the fray include Saints Julia,
Wilgefortis (aka Liberata), Eulalia, Febonia, Blandina of Lyons, Benedicta of Origny, and Tarbula, as summarized by Larry Silver (2006). She is
identified only tentatively, because as Bosch presents her, an attribute is always missing from each saint’s specific array, such as the masculine
beard divinely imparted to St. Wilgefortis, to render her unmarriageable, supporting her vow of chastity. Of course, such elisions and ambiguities are
the main point of the painting, I would argue. Bosch intends the work to be the focus for a learned conversation at court, as were books. Books are
routinely memorized in this period – for meditation, commentary and recitation – their function largely mnemonic, as Mary J. Carruthers indicates
(1990). Such courtly entertainments, displays of memoria, are described by Norbert Elias (1982). Other forms of discourse would be recalled as well,
such as vulgarisms, puns, folk sayings, and proverb wisdom.
This painting, I would argue, is an audaciously playful variation on the traditional Christus triumphans icon. Playfulness, a tongue-in-cheek approach, is often emphasized by Bosch, as John R. Decker observes (2006). St. Liberata, like
the triumphant Christ, is quite alive on the Tau-shaped cross. Her open eyes gaze heavenward, her effortlessly extended arms suggest wings and flight
-- as do many triumphans figures. They imply resurrection, the triumph over death. Inventive variations upon that crucifix tradition are numerous,
including Liberata’s gender, which inverts the norm. At play are the absent beard, her crown of gold rather than thorns, and her aristocratic garments
rather than a loincloth. A grieving man lying at the foot of the cross takes a crucifix-like posture (perhaps Eusebius, her pagan husband) – another
echo of the template. Various social ranks, lavish costumes, and psychological nuances receive attention here. In both wings, the Fallen World teems
with evil, temptation and destruction. St Anthony, on the left, struggles to meditate despite the nightmarish distractions around him. This is a
favorite trope of Bosch, marking his several hermit paintings. On the right wing, a harbor holds two sunken vessels and one still afloat, in flames.
The latter is a sinister grotesque, its deck given a giant scorpion’s-tail, its mast an enormous crab-pincer. Is this a critique of the Church? Is this
the ship of the Anti-Christ? Two exotic, pear-shaped towers rise in the distance, an elegant mirage.
At the center of The Hermits’ Triptych, St. Jerome meditates within the ruin of an ancient temple, his cardinal’s hat nearby. A throne serves
him as altar, at its center a Christus patiens icon. Upon the altar-throne are carved the Capture of a Unicorn (emblem of Chastity), and Judith
Beheading Holofernes (a Triumph of Humility over Pride). A third, comically vulgar carving shows a kneeling man, lodged inside a large basket, a stick
in his exposed backside. There an owl perches – the emblem of deception, as Paul Vandenbroeck notes (1985) – attracting a hapless flock of birds. A
pagan idol tumbles from a half-column of glass, within which an astrologer levitates among the stars. Are these architectural ruins emblems of earlier
life under the Mosaic Law, prior to the birth of Christ, as is common for scenes of the Nativity?
Saints Anthony Abbot and Giles pray in the Fallen World, under great duress, on the left and right wings, respectively. Both saints meditate before
witnesses, Anthony before a naked woman, emblem of his struggle with Lust, and Giles before a hunter, seen at the window of his shelter. The hunter’s
arrow pierces the breast of St. Giles, even as he prays, rather than striking the doe, whose milk has sustained Giles in the wilderness, according to
the Legenda aurea. The saint becomes an alternative victim, an emblem of self-sacrifice. Thus the unpublicized exhibition of the Bosch paintings
assembled for Cardinal Domenico Grimani is clearly a major event.
A catalogue is available: Bosch a Palazzo Grimani. Vittorio Sgarbi, Soprintendente. Soprintendenza Speciale ai Musei e alle Gallerie Statali della
Città di Venezia. Arthemisia group. Milan: Skira Editore, 2010. [entries by Caterina Limentani Virdis.]
1. Umberto Franzoi et al., Le Delizie dell’Inferno. Dipinti di Jheronimus Bosch e altri fiamminghi restaurati, Venice, 1992.
2. See Bernard Vermet, in: Jos Kooldeweij, Paul Vandenbroeck and Bernard Vermet, Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings, Rotterdam: Nai Publishers; Ghent/Amsterdam: Ludion, 2001, pp.
84-99, esp. 85-86; and illus., pp. 86-87, 90-91. See also Frédéric Elsig, and see, Roger van Schoute, Hélène Verougstraete, and Carmen Garrido in: Hieronymus Bosch, New Insights into His Life and Work, ed. by Jos Koldeweij, Bernard Vermet and Barbara van Kooij, Rotterdam: Nai Publishers, 2001, pp. 97-101, and 102-119, resp.
Glenn Benge
Temple University
