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K E I T H M 0 X E Y Hieronymus Bosch and the "World Upside Down": The Case of The Garden of Earthly Delights T HE writing of art history is often regarded as if it were a selfevident enterprise in which historians share common assumptions and common goals. What matters, it is thought, are not the theoretical assumptions and methodological procedures that animate the work so much as the empirical "evidence" the study brings to bear on the interpretation in question. The lack of articulated assumptions implies that such theoretical considerations are unnecessary because all practitioners share the same point of view. As a consequence, it is possible for the discipline to operate on the basis of a hidden agenda, one that is difficult to challenge because it is not supposed to exist. This essay, however, is as much concerned with the ways in which we have tried to make sense of the work of Hieronymus Bosch as it is with the construction of a new interpretation of its significance; that is, it is especially interested in what the historian brings to the work of interpretation . As a consequence, I shall try to define some of the most important presuppositions underlying current scholarship on Bosch, as well as the perspective from which my own proposal is made. A superficial acquaintance with the scholarly literature on Bosch reveals that, while the artist's work has been almost universally acknowledged to be enigmatic, one author after another has approached it as if it were a puzzle that needed solving or a code that should be broken . Erwin Panofsky epitomized this attitude when he wrote in Early Netherlandish Painting: In spite of all the ingenious, erudite and in part extremely useful research devoted to the task of "decoding Jerome Bosch," I cannot help feeling that the real secret of his magnificent nightmares and daydreams has still to be disclosed. We have bored a few holes through the door of the locked room; but somehow we do not seem to have discovered the key.! Hieronymus Bosch and the "World Upside Down" 105 Many competing interpretations suggest that Bosch's visual forms are symbols that can be explained through recourse to esoteric knowledge, which was part of Bosch's historical horizon but which is unknown to us today. As a consequence, the literature is characterized by attempts to explain his imagery in terms of astrology, alchemy, rare forms of heresy, illustrated puns, and so forth.2 There are, of course, notable exceptions to this rule. Interestingly enough, such approaches tend to favor a broader understanding of the cultural significance and social function of his art.3 Paul Vandenbroeck, for example, has recently provided us with an analysis of the social values manifested in Bosch's subject matter, thus affording us insight into his role as a member of a new, humanistically educated elite.4 He shows that such paintings as The Ship ofFools, The Cure of Folly, The Death of the Miser, and The Haywain Triptych not only manifest the secular morality of this group, but that these moral values were used to distinguish their own from the cultures of other classes. Another of Vandenbroeck's contributions is his discussion of Renaissance art theory in relation to Bosch's visual imagery. He argues, however, that while Bosch made use of concepts such as invention, fantasy, and genius in the elaboration of an apparently hermetic art, his work was nevertheless capable of being deciphered by a humanistically trained elite. The hermetic quality of Bosch's work is thus interpreted as a device by which meaning could be hidden from those who were regarded as socially (and morally) inferior. Vandenbroeck writes: His work may be accounted for down to the smallest detail, as Bax has demonstrated and maintained against all other interpreters. Bosch is a pseudo-visionary (a concept which we have used without pejorative connotations ), who sought the greatest possible control over the thought, that is to say the subject-like inventio which was the basis for his visual imagery.5 This interpretation is confirmed in his most recent essay on The Garden ofEarthly Delights, in which meaning is ascribed to every aspect of the pictorial fabric.6 In what follows, I will suggest that while the function of Bosch's paintings may very well have served the moral and social purposes ascribed to them by Vandenbroeck, his visual motifs did not possess the specific meanings that he and others have attributed to them...

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