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      None of these sources produced any conclusive results on the meaning of Bosch’s cryptic imagery. Again in this realm, one of the finest studies was that of de Tolnay. He went far in establishing current influences that would account for much Boschian iconography. Most importantly, he introduced a knowledge of Freudian psychology, revealing Bosch’s remarkable presentiment of this science. Jacques Combe followed de Tolnay’s lead in his treatise, translated into English from the French in 1946, and continuously acknowledged his indebtedness to the prior monographer, but his study was no mere imitation. He suggested many sources of symbolism overlooked by de Tolnay, such as alchemy and the tarot game. He made a strong case for association between Bosch’s ideology and that of the fourteenth-century Netherlandish mystic, Jan van Ruysbroek.

      A Ruysbroek follower, Gerard Groote, had spread his master’s teachings by founding the association of the Brethren of the Life in Common, numerous orders of which flourished in the fifteenth-century Netherlands. Since two schools of this order had been established in ‘s-Hertogenbosch in that century, Combe believed that Bosch might well have been influenced by their teachings. He supported this idea by quoting many passages from Ruysbroek’s writings which would seem to throw light on certain images in the paintings. This monograph of Combe’s is the finest of expression, even in translation, and is worthy to take its place beside de Tolnay’s.

      With such respectable scholastic attention, Bosch had finally come into his own in the mid-twentieth century as a significant artist. His works were seen not merely as an influence on Brueghel, but as extremely interesting in themselves. They were a deviating but appropriate link within the “Flemish tradition” in painting, with its curiously combined naturalism and symbolism. The work of de Tolnay, together with the increasing interest in Surrealism, had inspired popular interest in Bosch as a painter of the imaginary. It followed that several articles on Bosch were published in the most popular American periodicals, as well as in magazines of art. The popular articles presented Bosch as an interesting, almost freakish fantasist of the past and a precursor to Surrealism in his “queerness.”

      In most of the books written in English, as well as translated into English, the more scholarly authors continued to search for the exact sources of Bosch’s symbolism in outside material. Their implication was that Bosch’s symbols, however enigmatic, illustrated images already formed in literature or tradition, and that with enough study these sources would eventually be brought to light and his imagery made comprehensible.

      With the 1947 German edition and its translation into English of Wilhelm Fränger’s book The Millennium of Hieronymus Bosch, published by the University of Chicago, in 1951, Boschian research took a new direction. Fränger, too, felt that the answer to the artist’s mystery lay outside the realm of art, but rather than many sources of his symbolism, there was only one. None of the historians had conceived the idea, he asserted, that Bosch might have been obscuring his imagery with a secret purpose in mind-that of presenting the message of a society to which he belonged.

      If this were true, the answer to the painter’s enigma would lie in one place rather than in many. Fränger, in fact, brought all previous studies of Bosch’s work under question. Dissatisfied with their over-emphasis on the painter’s demons and hells, he believed that neither the separate hell scenes nor the paintings as a whole had ever been understood in their proper context. Thus, his was a radical departure from all previous interpretations; a highly intriguing and original study of Bosch, it illuminated as well the mind of its author.

      Although Fränger’s premise has since been discounted by many art historians, others have remained loyal to it. This, and the fact that its epiphanies and absurdities might have faded out of general currency with time justifies to this author reprising the study and thus, giving it more attention than others in the following review.

      Chapter II: Fränger’s Thesis (Epiphanies and Absurdities)

      20. Detail of the central panel of The Epiphany, or The Adoration of the Magi, the Brouchorst Bosschuyse Triptych, oil on panel, 138 × 72 × 144 cm, Museo nacional del Prado, Madrid

      Wilhelm Fränger began his study of Hieronymus Bosch and his work by deploring the “vulgar misunderstanding” Скачать книгу