Berdoy 2023
“A novel reading for the Garden of Earthly Delights: from new evidence in the image to a political narrative interpretation (the ABC hypothesis)” (Manuel Berdoy) 2023
[in: Jos Koldeweij and Willeke Cornelissen (eds.), Jheronimus Bosch – His Workshop and His Followers – 5th International Jheronimus Bosch Conference, May 11-13, 2023, Jheronimus Bosch Art Center, ’s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, Jheronimus Bosch Art Center, ’s-Hertogenbosch, 2023, pp. 50-73]
According to Berdoy, Bosch has inserted a number of visual ‘signposts’ into the interior panels of the Garden of Delights triptych showing the noble audience of the Burgundian court for whom the painting was intended the way to a socio-political hidden narrative. The author focuses on four of these so-called signposts: the giant butterfly, the giant mussel, and a number of ‘portraits’ in the central panel plus the nightjar in the right interior panel. These signposts are said to lead to a new interpretation of the triptych because they refer to a number of persons and events related to the late-fifteenth-century Burgundian court, from Charles the Bold up to Philip the Fair.
Berdoy’s ‘novel’ appoach is based on erroneous observations (the most striking ones being the interpretation of a man lying on his back as ‘dead’, the ‘identification’ of a building in one of the wings of the butterfly, and the ‘portraits’) and on extreme Hineininterpretation. Berdoy’s far-fetched conclusions are downright ludicrous, and dealing with them in more detail would be a share waste of time. There is also good news: as Berdoy is a biologist from Oxford university, we can now be pretty sure that the butterfly is a small tortoiseshell (aglais urticae), that the mussel is a freshwater pearl mussel (margaritifera margaritifera), and that the bird of prey sitting on a potty chair is a European nightjar (caprimulgus europaeus).
[explicit April 9, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]
