convince a man to sign a document, with an inkwell supplied by a demon,
conveying his property to the monastery—a sharp criticism of the Church.
Above them, the devil devours the damned and evacuates them into a pit
below his throne. Next to the devil are musical instruments—a lute, harp,
hurdy-gurdy, wind instrument, and drum. In the Renaissance and before,
musical instruments often were associated with angels and harmony, but here,
Bosch associates them with lust and turns
them into instruments of torture. The middle
section is dominated by a ¿ gure whose legs
are tree trunks, whose torso is a broken
egg, and who has a very human head with
a hat decorated with bagpipes. It has been
suggested that the face is a self-portrait but
without any documentary evidence. The top
level is crammed with individuals enduring
the tortures of damnation, and a city blazes
in the dark with hell¿ re.
This painting may have been commissioned
for the private enjoyment of a nobleman. Its
overall theme can be seen as a commentary
on sexuality and the relations between the sexes, from creation to damnation,
with a life of dubious pleasure in between. It even has been suggested that
this might have been commissioned for a wedding.
Our next example shows Bosch’s Seven Deadly Sins (c. 1490). This is a
circular composition; Bosch was so fond of circular compositions that they
must have had an emblematic signi¿ cance for him, perhaps symbolizing the
endless cycle of man’s folly. In this example, the concentric rings of the large
circle represent the eye of God, in the pupil of which we see Christ emerging
from his tomb. The inscription reads, “Beware, beware, God sees.” God
sees the sins of men, and the circle around the center presents the sins. For
example, avarice is shown by men bribing a judge, and gluttony is shown
by two men devouring everything the housewife brings. The circle can be
compared to a mirror, and the eye of God has been compared to a great
mirror reÀ ecting all creation. The corners of the tabletop have smaller circles
that are the “Four Last Things”—death, last judgment, heaven, and hell.
Bosch and his
contemporaries lived
with the presumption of
damnation, which must
have been intense in
s’-Hertogenbosch,
where the number of
religious institutions
was notable.