Między zamknięciem i otwarciem… Interpretacja wiersza Tadeusza Różewicza „Syn marnotrawny (z Hieronima Boscha)”

The aim of the article is to interpret a poem by Tadeusz Różewicz, Syn marnotrawny (z obrazu Hieronima Boscha) [The Prodigal Son (from the painting of Hieronymus Bosch)], from the volume Srebrny kłos [The Silver Ear of Corn] (1955). The poem is subjected to intertextual reading, which included strongly sketched autobiographical allusions, ecstatic descriptions of Bosch’s paintings and contextual references to the biblical parable of the prodigal son. Confronting the situation of the lyrical hero with the theological interpretation of the parable and reaching for the concept of reading the play proposed by Mieke Bal, ultimately reveals the kerygmatic meaning of the piece.

THE WORLD BETWEEN PARADISE AND HELL: “FEAST OF THE THREE KINGS” BY H. BOSCH (Rev.: Maizuls M.R. Between Christ and Antichrist: “The adoration of the Magi” by H. Bosch. M.: Alpina non-fiction, 2021. 238 p.)

The review pays special attention to the features of early Modern spiritual world and ideas of the Other by looking at the figures depicted on the triptych by Hieronymus Bosch. Paintings with biblical plots can give us information not only on the religious culture, but also on the secular world where the painter was living, displaying new discoveries of science, new lands and societies previously unknown to Europeans.

Diálogos intermidiáticos em games

O objetivo desta investigação é analisar comparativamente algumas capturas de tela do videogame Apocalipsis: Harry at the end of the world com imagens oriundas dos séculos XV – XVI (ou seja, a construção dos desenvolvedores com as fontes originais), tais como xilogravuras de Michael Wolgemut, Albrecht Durer e pinturas de Hieronymus Bosch e Pieter Bruegel, o Velho que podem ter servido de inspiração para a estética do jogo, procurando perceber onde os desenvolvedores fizeram adaptações na busca da criação de algo novo, o que eles recepcionaram, relacionando história e videogame via imagem. Para isso, nosso embasamento teórico partirá de leituras de Umberto Eco sobre a presença da Idade Média hoje, no conceito de intermidialidade exposto por Claus Clüver e no conceito de retrolugares proposto por Alberto Venegas Ramos.

The seven deadly sins: Images of pride and transience

The aim of this paper is to look at the works of William Shakespeare and the seven deadly sins from the perspective of painting. The seven deadly sins include pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth. The paper presents, among others, an analysis of the painting by Hieronymus Bosch with that very title – The Seven Deadly Things and the Four Last Things, with reference to such works by Shakespeare as A Comedy of Errors, Richard III or Twelfth Night.

What is the History of Anger a History of?

This essay uses the history of emotions to make two arguments – one destructive and one constructive. It uses examples from intellectual and cultural history to undermine the idea that the modern English term ‘anger’ refers either to a clearly defined mental state or to a coherent emotional concept. At the same time, it also questions the diagnosis of the present as an ‘age of anger’. Constructively, the essay uses the intellectual and cultural ancestries of modern ‘anger’ as a case-study in a distinctive approach to the history of emotions. With reference to works by linguists and anthropologists, to ancient philosophical and literary texts, and to some of the most influential visual representations of the irate body and the furious face, from Hieronymus Bosch to Charles Darwin, the essay explains and defends a pluralist and interdisciplinary approach, arguing that ‘anger’ is a modern English word without a stable transhistorical referent, and proposes the method of genealogical anatomy as a way to avoid the twin dangers of anachronism and essentialism in the history of emotions.

Pictures and Words: Allegorical and Persuasive Cartography

This paper aims to present a novel approach to map analysis, treating all ‘map-like’ drawings as icono-texts, according to premises postulated in modern cartographical theory by Brian Harley and his successors in this field. It is not just ‘deconstructing’ which takes place, but further interpretations are stimulated by probing questions not only of authorship (often unknown), but also of the social, cultural, and religious environment. Making an allegorical map and text was a difficult task, an intellectual endeavor, which demanded that the author carefully choose the symbols that would outlive the material. In this paper, the Fool’s Cap Map of the World is presented as an example of icono-textual analysis, by bringing together the most popular literary works and their illustrations – Erasmus Desiderius, Sebastian Brandt, and Hieronymus Bosch. The double masks of the author – the pseudonym “Epichtonius Cosmopolites”, with its denunciation of nationality, and the jester’s costume, were chosen as the means of conveying unpleasant truths about the state of the world, France, and/or the Netherlands. Human hybris, Suberbia and Vanitas were the primal sins, by which they were all blinded, waging wars for pieces of land and worldly goods. Therefore, the fool’s malade is melancholy, strictly reserved for male intellectuals – Ficino, Dürer, Shakespeare, Bright and Burton. On the other hand, it would seem as if the female primal sin were vanity, which brings the puritan Bunyan and Anglican Thackeray into this polyphonic interpretation. Their works did, however, show that’'vanitas’ is present among both genders and is an everlasting human trait, now heavily exploited as a ’cash crop’ par excellence. Since all knowlegde is situated, I feel the need to say that I am finishing this paper in self-quarantine due to the ’new plague’ pandemic, wondering if the people in this mad and greedy world would contemplate how all is nothing, and whether the survivors would be better, i.e. more human, acting with more empathy, regardless of the perpetually announced Apocalypse. This remains to be witnessed.

“The Wayfarer” (“The Pedlar”) by Hieronymus Bosch as an Archetypal Image of an ‘Other-Stranger’

One of the most important contemporary experiences of European societies is undoubtedly the migration crisis. The resulting social fears of ‘strangers,’ which have been activated, show how important the archetypical ‘other-stranger’ pattern still is, and that it can be treated as an example of an ‘anthropological constant.’ The aim of the article is to try to look at the painting “The Wayfarer” by Hieronymus Bosch as an illustration of the archetypical ‘other-stranger’ pattern. It seems that such a reading of this work, rich in symbolic content, on the one hand perfectly justifies the thesis of the archetypical sources of contemporary attitudes towards ‘strangers’ and, on the other hand, allows one to better understand and explain the current reactions and behaviors of Europeans. This becomes particularly evident when juxtaposing the image of Hieronymus Bosch with the contemporary media images of migrants.

The Hybrid Character - between the Representations of the Middle Ages and Today’s Art

This paper is a study of the fantastic character throughout the history of human civilization. This type of character has evolved from the hybrid creatures playing a divine role in the art of Assyro-Babylonian civilizations and of Ancient Egypt, to the monstrous characters of the Middle Ages which served as substitutes for sin and the force of evil, visible in the entrelacs of illuminated manuscripts or the gargoyles guarding the walls of Gothic cathedrals, to the characters of non-human origin in children’s book illustrations, and up to the characters found in fantasy films or today’s hybrids, who are in a perfect relationship with technological and cultural evolution. The paper discusses some original visions and working methods, from the slightly humorous portraits signed by Arcimboldo, the hybridization of animal kingdoms, in a much more tragic register, in the works of Hieronymus Bosch or the fantastic character used as a weapon of political and moral satire in the works of Goya and Grandville, to the unexpected, occult and mysterious visions of Ernst Fuchs’ creations or the imaginary universe populated by hybrid beings, of ‘extra-terrestrial origin, found in the works of HR Giger.