Pinson 1995
“Fall of the Angels and Creation in Bosch’s Eden: Meaning and Iconographical Sources” (Yona Pinson) 1995
[in: Bert Cardon and Maurits Smeyers (eds.), Flanders in a European Perspective: Manuscript Illumination around 1400 in Flanders and Abroad – Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Leuven, 7-10 September 1993. Low Countries Series – 5, Corpus of Illuminated Manuscripts – 8, Uitgeverij Peeters, Louvain, 1995, pp. 693-707]
Pinson focuses on the left interior panels of Bosch’s Haywain, Vienna Last Judgement and Garden of Delights triptychs. In the Haywain and in the Last Judgement the combination of the Fall of the Rebel Angels and the history of Adam and Eve constitutes a rare iconographical programme. The Speculum Humanae Salvationis is the only textual source representing the Fall of the Angels as some sort of ‘prologue’ to the Fall of Adam and Eve and therefore should be considered the major inspirational source for Bosch’s left interior panels in Madrid (Haywain) and Vienna. But whereas the Speculum focuses on Salvation, Bosch stresses the corruption of the world: with him, everything ends with eternal damnation in Hell. By placing the two motifs (Fall of the Angels and Fall of Adam and Eve) on a vertical line, Bosch imitated one of the Speculum’s illustrative types, where the Fall of the Angels is also placed on top of the Fall of Adam and Eve.
According to medieval sources, the separation of land and water, as represented in the exterior panels of the Garden can refer to the separation of good and evil, in particular to the separation of the good and the bad angels. In the left interior panel, Bosch painted a combination of the Creation of Eve and the Presentation of Eve, whereas around this detail we see a number of references to evil. Here again, a world that has been corrupted from the very start. There is no place for hope in these three triptychs. Humanity does not replace the fallen angels, as was planned by God. Instead, because of man’s folly and sin the world is dominated by the devil, and this leads to Hell.
[explicit June 13, 2019 – Eric De Bruyn]
