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This creature with its monstrous skull is riding on a peculiarly plucked goose-like creature. He is playing his harp, here as a symbol for one of the many temptations to which mankind is exposed and which Saint Anthony so bravely resisted. Even in those days, making music could apparently lead to lecherous behaviour.
ABOUT THE ARTWORK: THE TEMPATION OF SAINT ANTHONY Saint Anthony
won a lot of praise in Hiëronymus Bosch's heyday. He resisted
diabolical temptations, in sharp contrast with the ordinary mortals, as
this triptych portrays in splendid colours. The closed panels show the
arrest and crucifixion of Jesus.
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ABOUT THE ART PERIOD: From
an artistic point of view, the world famous brilliant forerunner of
surrealism was, in his day, unique and radically different. Hiëronymus
(Jeroen for schort) Bosch was born (ca. 1450-1516) during the
transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance in ‘s-Hertogenbosch,
in the Duchy of Brabant. Bosch places visionary images in a hostile
world full of mysticism, with the conviction that the human being, due
to its own stupidity and sinfulness has become prey to the devil
himself. He holds a mirror to the world with his cerebral irony and
magical symbolism, sparing no one. He aims his mocking arrows equally
well at the hypocrisy of the clergy as the extravagance of the nobility
and the immorality of the people. Hiëronymus Bosch’s style arises from
the tradition of the book illuminations (manuscript illustrations from
the Middle Ages). The caricatural representation of evil tones down its
terrifying implications, but also serves as a defiant warning with a
theological basis.
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