proposed triptych, revised

 May 20, 2012 update:
This doesn't make sense anymore now that the haywain triptychs are identified as studies for the tapestries etc.

(updated August 6, 2007)
For this version of the proposed reconstruction, The Miser, NGW, Ship of Fools, Louvre, and Allegory, New Haven are regarded as copies of larger lost originals. The change is based on iconography, scale, and style.
Outside: an image of poverty with a scene from the life of St. Martin (outside panels, The Haywain, Madrid, replacing the previous version's The Pedlar, Rotterdam)
Inside, left: St. Francis, suffering an illness as a teenager, from which he recovered (panel painting, The Death of the Miser, Washington, DC)
Inside, center: St. Clara continuing the work of St. Francis (lost panel painting, perhaps approximately copied in the tapestry shown here, The Haywain, Madrid)
Inside, right: an uncertain future since the allegory could represent either the marriage of Martin Luther and Katharina Von Bora in 1525 or innocent Franciscans and Poor Clares; possibly cut in half to separate the St. Martin’s Day barrel from the lute associated with Martin Luther (panel painting, The Ship of Fools, Paris, and panel painting, Allegory of Intemperance, New Haven)


Notes on the revised “new triptych” (click on links):

• scale: (1) Benjamin Binstock's "digital connoisseurship," (2) panels and tapestry
• previous studies of Bosch triptychs
• the dendrochronological analyses of The Pedlar (Rotterdam) , The Miser, The Ship of Fools, and Allegory of Intemperance
• transparent paint
• the theory that The Pedlar (Rotterdam) was formerly in two parts
  
• interpretations of The Pedlar, The Miser, the Haywain tapestry, the Haywain triptychs, The Ship of Fools, and Allegory of Intemperance
• previous reconstructions, including a previous suggestion that the center panel was a Haywain picture
• Haywain triptychs, Haywain paintings, and lost Haywain paintings
• the complete series of tapestries
• Franciscans in pictures by Hieronymus Bosch and imitators
• Luther and lute players

proposed triptych of sts francis and clara

May 20. 2012 update:
Not at all sure if the Rotterdam Pedlar or Wayfarer might be early Pieter Bruegel, the inside right and left might be Hieronymus Bosch, and the tapestry might be Pieter Coecke van Aelst and workshop making a hash of a Raphael workshop cartoon. The mixup from five years ago still shows that Franciscan art somehow stayed pretty consistent.
This reconstruction has been modified; see above.

la vanidad del mundo

In a new book published in 2006, El Bosco y la tradición pictórica de lo fantástico, page 118, note 38, José Manuel Cruz Valdevinos observed that two or three letters in a single word in an old inventory seem to have been misread:

…Cuando la entrega se denomina una pintura "de la banidad del mundo", si bien los autores transcriben "bariedad"… (When it was delivered it was listed as a painting of "the vanity of the world", even though the authors transcribe it as "variety"…)

(The rest of this note has been moved to the notes page.)

timeline

Labels with the wrong names or dates can drain almost all the meaning out of pictures. The age of the confusing news picture began long before Photoshop and YouTube.
(click image to enlarge)

Intro

There is overwhelming evidence that El Jardín de las Delicias/The Garden of Delights dates from no earlier than 1527 or 1528. The indication of the exact date comes from the artist’s unique and eccentric version of Nahuatl picture writing, and corroboration for the date comes from images relating to at least four topics that have been completely unexplored by art historians in studies of this extremely famous painting:

1. satires directed against Martin Luther
2. Juana la Loca and her son and co-regent of Spain Carlos I (aka Charles V)
3. parodies of some famous artists, including Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael et al.
4. European scholars’ interest in native picture writing in the context of the 1528 trial of Hernán Cortés; or anything pertaining to New Spain/Mexico

A tacit attitude seems to persist among art historians where Hieronymus Bosch paintings can be regarded as easy in the sense that since Bosch died a few years before Martin Luther became prominent, the paintings are still Catholic and medieval. It is not easy to disentangle the reasons why the Bosch paintings were enigmatic in the first place and why they have remained enigmatic in the face of scholarly efforts; for instance what seems like an effect of censorship might sometimes have been an effort to filter information to keep explanations of heresy from reaching Juana la Loca in her seclusion at Tordesillas. What seems like obtuseness with regard to Nahuatl picture writing may have started with Pedro da Gante’s simplified picture catechisms, but it evolves into a set of preferences that have more to do with how Europeans regard European art than with the original hieroglyphics.
It is obvious that the twenty or more paintings and triptychs found in books about Hieronymus Bosch are not all by the same person, and it has been misleading to assume that if they are not all by Hieronymus Bosch, they must be imitations, forgeries, or attempts to rival Hieronymus Bosch. It is more complicated than that. Some are anti-Catholic and some are anti-Protestant, and the artists remained anonymous for different reasons, including but not limited to selling imitations of old paintings.
Changing the name of the artist who painted a famous painting is never easy, and it seems fortunate that El Jardín de las Delicias/The Garden of Delights is already labeled “El Bosco”; perhaps the nickname will still apply to the real artist when and if she or he is identified by name, particularly if (as seems likely) the artist who painted El Jardín de las Delicias/The Garden of Delights was Spanish or at least lived in Spain.
This online project is comprised of five blogs, with this page functioning as an index and a place to look for updates. The plan is to have this intro continue to be at the top of the page, followed by a conventional blog with the newest posting at the top. The postings will consist of consist of short summaries with highlighted links that will make it easy to find pictures and explanations.