Nies 2023a
HET EINDE DER TIJDEN VOOR OGEN
Het werk van Jheronimus Bosch bezien in het kader van
de apocalyptische eschatologie en de hervormingsbewegingen
(Frans Nies) 2023
[Nijmeegse Kunsthistorische Studies – XXXI, SPA uitgevers-Jheronimus Bosch Art Center, Liederholthuis-’s-Hertogenbosch, 2023, 304 pages]
This is the commercial edition of Frans Nies’ dissertation defended at the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen on April 25, 2023. The advisor (promotor) was Jos Koldeweij. Translation of the Dutch title: Facing the End of Times – The art of Jheronimus Bosch considered in the context of apocalyptic eschatology and the reform movements.
Chapter 1 : The works of Jheronimus Bosch [pp. 14-71]
The character of Bosch’s oeuvre is largely eschatological and often testifies of a fear of the end of times, but a thorough analysis of his works from an apocalyptic-eschatological perspective is still lacking in the literature on Bosch. Nies intends to study in how far the art of Bosch reflects the religious spirit of his era and the fear of the end of times which was part of it. More in particular, he wants to examine in how far the critical rendering of the clergy and the descriptions of the Antichrist can be related to Christian reform movements which would lead to the Reformation. This chapter offers an elaborate status quaestionis of earlier research on those works of Bosch that have an eschatological dimension. These works are…
The author pays a lot of attention to the negative representation of members of the clergy in these works (it should be noted, though, that his identifications of clergymen are sometimes debatable, as he himself admits in some cases). Nies has a profound knowledge of the existing secundary literature concerning these works (although every now and then he focuses too much on interpretations that are clearly unconvincing, such as Sullivan’s 2014 article in which she argues that the Christ figure in the left interior panel of the Garden of Delights is actually the Antichrist: the article gets no less than five pages), and he does not shy away from taking personal stands (for example when he concurs with the authors who consider the so-called ‘Fourth King’ in the Prado Adoration of the Magi the Antichrist or when he writes that Aragonès Estella’s approach of this figure is ‘totally inconvincing’). Nevertheless, the risk remains that for those who have not read this secundary literature themselves the large quantity of often contradictory approaches and opinions becomes confusing after a while.
Bosch’s critical rendering of the clergy can be related to earlier and contemporary reformatory movements that saw the misbehaviour of clergymen as a sign of the approaching end of times. A second indication in this context was the expected arrival of the Antichrist. It is remarkable that De Bruyn’s dissertation (De Bruyn 2001a) is largely ignored in the discussion of the Haywain. This is all the more remarkable because in this dissertation it is argued that the figure with the turban and the fat belly in the central panel is the Antichrist (see pp. 203-204). This interpretation is not even mentioned by Nies, whereas he pays a lot of attention to the Antichrist figure in the art of Bosch.
Chapter 2 : The Antichrist: the origin of the legends [pp. 72-151]
Although it would have been enough to describe the ideas concerning the Antichrist during and before Bosch’s lifetime, the author chooses to present an elaborate history of the Antichrist legends in this chapter. This history (from early Judaism until the sixteenth century) shows that in Bosch’s times the Antichrist concept had become deeply rooted in the collective consciousness. Earlier Bosch literature paid too little attention to this history.
Nies frequently uses the phrase apocalyptic eschatology, which at first seems somewhat problematic (in the eyes of the author himself). The specialized literature dealing with this phrase is said to be confused and unclear (pp. 74-76). Nevertheless, we may assume that ‘eschatology’ means: the ideas about the ‘last things’ (death, Last Judgment, the End of Times). The addition ‘apocalyptic’ then refers to texts which supply (‘reveal’) further information about these ‘last things’. In the first place the Revelations of St John (the last book of the Bible), but there are more textual sources in this context.
Whoever wants to gather information about the Antichrist concept will greatly profit and learn a lot from this chapter, something for which the author deserves the highest praise. It is a downright wonderful performance that is being delivered here based on long and persevering research. However, it does not really result in a pleasant, smooth reading experience. The reader is almost engulfed by a tsunami of consecutive facts and details presented in a very compact and terse manner and supplemented with often very elaborate footnotes that could fill a book of their own. Thus, this chapter almost becomes an encyclopedia, but as such it surely is impressive. Those who are only interested in Bosch, though, will soon find the dry, page-long enumerations a hard nut to crack. When at the end the reform movements (Modern Devotion, Hussites, Luther) are discussed, Bosch does come somewhat closer.
Nies concludes that until the period of the Reformation no clearly defined image of the Antichrist existed, but under the influence of the reform movements the ideas about the Antichrist and the End of Times showed more and more criticism on the Church and even on the pope. The pope was sometimes considered the Antichrist. Thanks to translations in the vernucalar, plays performed in public, and preachers the common people also became familiar with this subject matter around 1500.
Chapter 3 : The development of the Antichrist iconography [pp. 152-207]
What has been said above about chapter 2, is also true for chapter 3, but this time the author offers an elaborate survey of Antichrist iconography, from the early Middle Ages until the beginning of the Reformation.
Chapter 4 : Last Judgment or Apocalypse? [pp. 208-235]
This chapter is the most important one, at least for those who are primarily interested in the art of Bosch. Nies first offers a concise survey of the Last Judgment theme in the visual arts before and during (and at the end of the chapter also after) Bosch’s lifetime, after which he focuses on Bosch’s Last Judgment triptychs in Bruges and Vienna. These triptychs deviate from the traditional representation of the Last Judgment because we do not see the dead rising from their graves and because almost everybody ends up in Hell. According to Nies, these triptychs were mainly inspired by Revelations, chapter 20 where we read that that the ‘elected’ will be the first to rise from their graves (the so-called ‘first resurrection’) and that after 1,000 years the devils will war against the followers of Christ. Only after that will the Last Judgment begin.
The main theme of the central panels of both these triptychs is not the Last Judgment but the Apocalypse, i.e. the period of chaos preceding the Last Judgment when the devils fight against Christ’s followers. The few souls who are being saved in Bosch’s triptychs are the ‘elected’ of the first resurrection going straight to Heaven, and the Bruges left interior panel, showing the Earthly Paradise, represents the purified souls of those who had not sinned too much, probably inspired by the writings of Dionysius the Carthusian. In both left interior panels (Bruges and Vienna) evil (still) plays a role, with which Bosch wanted to express that evil was already present at the start of creation.
Aware of the impending end of times, Bosch (or his commissioner) saw the period immediately before the Last Judgment as an image of his own times and wanted to warn his contemporaries of sinful behaviour, in particular of the clergy’s bad conduct. This criticism of the clergy announces the Reformation, which does not necessarily mean that Bosch belonged to a reform movement. A similar message (warning of sinfulness and advising pious behaviour) can be found in Bosch’s Haywain and Garden of Delights triptychs.
Some comment on this chapter
On page 212 Nies refers to a study of Beat Brenk (1966) arguing that the rising of the dead is often a part of representations of the Last Judgment, but this motif is not an absolutely necessary ‘Elementarprinzip’ of the Last Judgment iconography. Sometimes the rising of the dead was ‘implicitly assumed’. Nies agrees with this approach, and yet the absence of the rising of the dead is for him one of the reasons why Bosch’s Last Judgment triptychs do not show the Last Judgment (see page 221). This cannot but confuse the reader.
The major textual source for the thesis that Bosch’s Last Judgment triptychs do not represent the Last Judgment but the Apocalypse (the period preceding the Last Judgment) is Revelations, chapter 20, verses 4-10. But these verses are very compact and not very clear at all. According to the Biblical text the devils will battle against ‘the camp of the saints and the beloved city’ (Revelations 20, 9: et circumierunt castra sanctorum et civitatem dilectam in the Vulgate), i.e. against the followers of Christ. But in the Bruges and Vienna central panels the devils do not fight against the followers of Christ, they punish and torture the sinners. What Bosch painted does not agree with the text in Revelations.
Nies’ approach of the Bruges left interior panel (representing the Garden of Eden as some sort of ‘waiting room’ before Heaven) offers some valuable insights but is eventually unsatisfactory because a lot more can be said about this theme than is done in his book. This is not the proper place to elaborate on this matter. Let us just point out that the Last Judgment triptych (Valencia, c. 1457) painted by Vrancke van der Stock before Bosch is nót mentioned (whereas elsewhere in the book the reader is avalanched with textual and visual sources). The central panel of this triptych does not represent the rising of the dead either (it shows St Michael weighing the sins and the virtues) and its left interior panel also depicts the Garden of Eden as a waiting room before Heaven.
On page 235 Nies writes (in translation): Even in the paradisiacal scenes in the left panel [i.e. in the Bruges and Vienna left interior panels] he showed that evil, which flourishes and is being punished in the other panels, was present from the beginning of creation. The phrase ‘paradisiacal scenes’ is superficial and even debatable. Because the represented themes are totally different: in Vienna we see the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man, whereas in Bruges we see the Garden of Eden after the Fall as a waiting room before Heaven. Referring to Dionysius the Carthusian, Nies interprets the souls ascending to Heaven in the Bruges left upper panel as the just who have been judged in a positive way at the iudicium particulare (i.e. immediately after their death) and the figures in the Garden of Eden as the souls that have been purified in Purgatory and are now waiting for the Last Judgment (p. 224). This sounds contradictory and confusing.
Nies concludes that Bosch’s view on mankind and on the world was pessimistic and that that is why he focused on the apocalyptic scenes (p. 234). Again, this is debatable. On the next page Nies himself writes (in translation): Convinced that his own time, characterized by catastrophes and the works of the devil, was the end of times preceding the decline of the world, Bosch warned the viewer that within short notice he would be summoned to account for his behaviour during lifetime. Could this not be considered the message of an optimist or at least of someone who wants the best for mankind? To warn of sinful behaviour and to propagate piety are the explicit intentions of many contemporary texts that deal with the Last Judgment.
One of these texts is an anonymous and rhymed Last Judgment treatise (c. 1445-50) that can be found in the so-called Tübingse Sint-Geertrui-handschrift [Tübingse Sint-Geertrui-handschrift ed. 1996: 86-123 (Text 3)]. Middle Dutch texts such as this one nicely represent what people in the Low Countries around 1500 thought about the Last Judgment. The verses 715-727 read (in translation):
'With St Paul I can declare that all the elected will rise up into the sky with Christ, for in his letters we read: when the Lord comes, we who live will be lifted up into the clouds, towards Him. That is why I can also assure you that only the bad ones, who cherish earthly things, will be standing on the earth in the valley mentioned above [i.e. in the Valley of Josaphat] and its surroundings, and their number will be so large that they will need more space than Holland, Sealand and Gelderland together.'
The elected in the sky and the doomed in large numbers down on the earth: does this not nicely agree with what Bosch painted in the Vienna central panel? Would it be possible that Bosch was more inspired by texts such as this one (not necessarily by this one) than by Revelations 20?
All-in all and for now, it does not seem necessary to change the title of Bosch’s Bruges and Vienna Last Judgment triptychs into Apocalypse triptychs.
Chapter 5 : The end of times in religious drama [pp. 236-267]
This chapter offers an overview of medieval religious drama (including the mystery plays) from the tenth until the sixteenth century and intends to show that through this art form the apocalyptic-eschatological ideas could reach broad layers of the population and thus became part of the collective consciousness. Also the authors and performers of religious plays considered the end of times an urgent and current theme. The critical attitude toward the clergy is largely absent, though, probably because these plays were supervised by clerical and worldly authorities. Again, this chapter offers a lot of interesting information about the subject it deals with, but the works of Bosch do not play a role in it.
Chapter 6 : Conclusion [pp. 268-282]
In two languages (Dutch and English) Nies summarizes the major conclusions of his study.
Conclusion
Het einde der tijden voor ogen is an instructive and very sound dissertation that totally justifies Nies’ doctoral promotion. In an exemplary and convenient way, the author has brought together a large number of textual and visual facts concerning the End of Times, the Antichrist, and the Last Judgment, and he does not shy away from defending personal views with the intention to open up new horizons concerning the art of Bosch. However, not everyone will concur on his major point of view, i.e. that Bosch did not paint Last Judgments but Apocalypses.
Let us also point out that the book has an extremely attractive layout with some striking technical gimmicks. Something for which Nies, who according to the ‘Afterword’ has quite some experience with graphical design, was personally responsible. However, the idea to print the footnotes in small letters and in a light-blue colour was less rewarding: under a particular incidence of light they are almost illegible. Deserving praise, though, is Nies’ clear and accessible writing style which stands out positively against the supererudite, highly academical way of arguing of some other recent Bosch authors.
Finally, it can alo be pointed out that Nies, when dealing with the art of Bosch, uncritically adopts the insights of the BRCP team (see BRCP 2016a), which is perhaps not surprising taking into account who his supervisor was. One example confirming this, is the stubborn choice of still calling the protagonists of the Rotterdam tondo and of the exterior wings of the Haywain ‘wayfarers’ instead of ‘pedlars’. Another even more striking example is when the Bruges Last Judgment is attributed to ‘Jheronimus Bosch’, whereas the Vienna Last Judgment is attributed to ‘Jheronimus Bosch ánd workshop’.
[explicit December 8, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]
