Bosch. Saint John the Baptist in the desert
Hieronymus Bosch
Saint John the Baptist in the desert
The theme of unbridled earthly pleasures, contrary to popular belief, was not dominant in Bosch. No less often, the artist addressed themes of holiness and prayer, meditation and asceticism.
As an example of a righteously lived life, hermits most often appear in the works of Hieronymus Bosch - those who retired from a world lying in evil, so that, left alone with themselves and God, they repent and pray.
Such are the founder of hermit monasticism, Saint Anthony, the scribe Jerome praying in the desert, and the evangelical John the Baptist.
1489, 48.540.5 cm Oil, Wood
John the Baptist
John the Baptist (John the Baptist) is the last of the biblical prophets, the direct predecessor of Jesus Christ, whose task was to “prepare His way.”
John called the people of Israel to repentance and baptized with water, explaining that the One coming after him would baptize with the holy spirit.
If the Pharisees could reproach Jesus Christ for not fasting, but, on the contrary, not disdaining to eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners, then John the Baptist is the image of a perfect ascetic who lived in the desert, wore a coarse woolen cape and ate “locusts” ) and wild honey."
A modern viewer may have a logical question: why does the place where John the Baptist retired in Bosch’s painting so little resemble a desert?
Indeed, trees and bushes are green all around, an exotic fruit is ripening next to the Forerunner, and the grass is so green and lush that the lamb lying not far from John probably does not experience hunger.
The fact is that in Bosch’s time the word “desert” in the Dutch language was not associated with barren sands.
Rather, it was about a deserted area. In the same decade as Bosch's painting, John the Baptist was painted by another Dutch artist, Geertgen tot Sint Jans.
Here the “desert” also consists of green hills intersected by streams and beautiful trees.
Art critics see the influence of Sint Jans in Bosch's painting “John the Baptist”. But if the latter’s landscape is entirely realistic, then Bosch remains Bosch when he depicts a characteristic fantastic plant with thorns, an exquisitely curving stem and luxurious overripe fruit (similar ones can be found in his other paintings), personifying all the sweetness of earthly temptations and temptations.
Almost always, such fruits from Bosch have a magnificent shell, reminiscent of a bright, fragrant and ripe fruit, but with rotten interior and deadly seeds.
So that there is no doubt about this, the artist paints three birds: one of them sits on a bud at the upper edge of the picture (it does not peck at the fruit of vice, so it is not in danger), the second pecks out the middle of the ripened fruit, and the third, apparently recently fed up with that food, already lies dead with its paws down, on the slab on which John is leaning.
The leaves of the plant resemble thistles - a symbol of original sin. A rock with bizarre outlines in the background, reminiscent of the “fountains of life” from “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” also points to spiritual dangers and temptations.
The white lamb perched under a piece of rock symbolizes Jesus Christ, in accordance with the Gospel interpretation of Him as a sinless lamb who is sacrificed as atonement human sins.
Bosch's John points his finger at the lamb. This gesture is a direct pictorial parallel to the words spoken by the Baptist in the Gospel of John.
In the biblical tradition, the image of John the Baptist is closely associated with temperance, laconicism and spiritual strength. Throughout his conscious earthly life, he did good, saving people from the most serious sins with sacred ablution rituals. Who did the preacher interfere with, and what was the cause of his tragic and horrifyingly cruel death?
1. An angel announced the birth of John
John was born when his parents, priest Zechariah and Elizabeth, had already reached old age. The birth of a boy was heralded by the Archangel Gabriel, who appeared to Zechariah during a service in the temple and told him the good news. But the future father was thrown into confusion and was speechless until the birth of his son. It was decided to give him a name after all, by order of Gabriel.
The boy was named John, which went against the customary tradition of naming babies in honor of the ancestors of the family. Previously, Jews believed that if a couple was childless, this was punishment for sins. Therefore, the birth of John was a double miracle for his parents. Thanks to the omen, Zechariah knew that his son was destined for the messiah of the prophet, and he would be the Forerunner of the Savior. And so it happened: John was born exactly 6 months earlier than Jesus.
2. Young John survived alone in the desert
King Herod, who ruled at that time, was frightened by the news of the birth of the new king of Israel, and ordered the killing of all the babies. It's here scary night massacre of the Bethlehem infants. Elizabeth, in order to save her only son, fled with him into the desert. And Father Zachary was killed during the service. After long wanderings in the desert, Elizabeth died.
The young boy remained to live in the vast expanses of the endless desert. Moreover, he himself chose the fate of a cave existence as an outcast, where he prayed tirelessly and lived in complete solitude until he was 30 years old. In everyday life he was extremely abstinent: he wore coarse clothes made of camel hair, and ate exclusively modest plant foods.
3. Forerunner, but not Messiah
Having learned about John's miraculous power, the people of Israel began to come to him for sermons. People thought that he was the Messiah. However, John said that he was only preparing them for the coming of the Savior. The Forerunner began to baptize the inhabitants of Jerusalem and wash them in the waters of the Jordan, which can save them from sins. Before baptism, he called for repentance and only then immersion in the river. The circle of his followers grew tirelessly, despite the fact that John was extremely harsh and strict towards any vices.
One day, Jesus Christ appeared on the banks of the Jordan to listen to the sermons of the Forerunner. John proclaimed Jesus the Messiah and began the rite of baptism of the Son of the Lord. During the ablution, a dove appeared, which was the Holy Spirit, and confirmed the truth of the destiny. It was the baptism of Jesus that became the epochal completion of the righteous ministry of John the Baptist.
4. Violent death for truth
John called on the people to live by God's laws and not fall into sin. He was a formidable accuser of both ordinary people and powerful of the world this. For which he suffered. John severely condemned King Herod's illegal cohabitation with his niece Herodias, who was also his brother's wife. For speeches displeasing the king, John was seized and imprisoned. His time in the cell ended with a terrible ending.
Selfish Herod celebrated his birthday. At the festive feast, Herodias’ daughter Salome performed a “frank and provocative” dance for the king, which turned the sovereign’s head. And he promised to do for her whatever she wished. Salome, persuaded by her mother, asked to be given the head of the prophet on a platter. Herod was discouraged by the request, but in order to fulfill his promise, he ordered this “whim” to be fulfilled.
The guard guarding the preacher cut off his head and presented the “trophy” to Salome, who gave it to Herodias. The incestuous woman, terrible in her madness, began to prick the saint’s tongue in a frenzy and then threw out her head. The burial of John's body took place in Sebaste.
5. Finding the relics
The relics of the righteous man remained in Constantinople for a long time until the Turkish invasion, and then were transported to St. Petersburg. The head of the saint was buried in a vessel on the Mount of Olives, where a temple was subsequently erected.Retribution
King Herod was punished for his crime: his army was defeated, and he himself was exiled to prison by order of Caligula. The death of Salome exactly repeated the violent death of the prophet. She was crossing a river on ice in winter; suddenly the ice cracked and Salome fell. The ice floes closed around her neck, decapitating her.
"Saint John the Baptist in the Desert"
Before us is another saint depicted by Bosch, who, in the minds of most Cathars, was originally a servant of Satan. This demon in human form, oddly enough, is John
Baptist. The Cathars believed that the saint was the closest accomplice of Jehovah-Satan. The Secret Book says that John the Baptist,
or the prophet Elijah, was sent to earth by the Prince of Darkness to take away the mission of the Savior from Christ 179. He baptized with water, which in Catharism meant involving the devil in the religion. According to Cathar tradition, water was a dark demonic sphere, and immersion in it was considered the fall of the soul into the physical world 180. Therefore, water baptism resulted in spiritual death rather than rebirth for the convert.
In his painting, Bosch offers a strange interpretation of the image of John the Baptist (color ill. 50). The saint sits on the ground in the shade of a huge plant and points to the lamb. The plant bears large hollow fruits. Pearl seeds fall out of them, which birds peck. Such symbols have already been found in the triptych “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. The plant means the Tree of Death, which draws souls into
material world. In the Cathar interpretation, the plant, which lures souls, indicates the union of John the Baptist with Satan.
The lamb - the canonical symbol of Christ - is perceived differently by the Cathars. In Bosch's iconography, the lamb was used as an image of a deceived Christian who fell into the devil's trap because of his false faith. It looks like the lamb on the right side of the Adoration of the Magi triptych. The background is a landscape depicting a large rock ( Catholic Church), from which a dry tree grows (another Tree of Death). John the Baptist may be pointing to the lamb as Satan's future sacrifice.
The landscape, according to the gospel story, should be a desert area. Indeed, you can see bare rocks in it, but it is not a desert or a swamp. There is lush vegetation all around, reminiscent of Bosch's depiction of an earthly paradise. As in the latter, caves are visible in the rocks, wild animals (sometimes looking like small monsters) roam in the fields, and bizarre plants are intertwined. Against the background of the rock-church, John the Baptist calmly sits under the Tree of Death in this deceptively beautiful “paradise”, all his attention is directed to the lamb.
"Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness" ("Meditation of John the Baptist")- painting by the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch.
In the midst of a mesmerizingly poetic landscape filled with sunset light, the holy prophet John is depicted deep in religious meditation. This collision of two realities - “high” and “down” - represents another version of the theme that has become typical of Bosch’s work - the victory of the spiritual principle over the sinful temptations of the world.
The compositional solution of the painting was probably influenced by the painting by Hertgen tot Sint Jans, painted several years earlier, which depicts a prophet, staring unseeingly into space in deep thought. In Bosch, he points to the Lamb of God, depicted in the lower right corner. John the forerunner of Christ is traditionally recognized by this gesture, but in this case it also denotes a spiritual alternative to the carnal principle, embodied in the juicy fleshy fruits that rise nearby on gracefully curved stems, and in equally eloquent plants in the background.
In the foreground rises a strangely curved plant with wide leaves and huge thorns - it seems that it grew here specifically to distract the hermit from pious thoughts. The suspicious fruits of this fantastic bush are symbols of earthly temptations. A trunk studded with thorns, similar to a thistle, recalls original sin: having made their first choice - having tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge - the first parents, and with them the entire human race, lost the earthly paradise. But in the context of the theme of temptation, this fabulous plant can also be interpreted as an image of a vision sent by the devil to John the Baptist who had retired into the desert.
Birds of different breeds feed on huge forest berries: both feathered and overgrown plants correspond to the flora and fauna in the triptych “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. The thematic and chronological connection of these works is also indicated by other analogies, for example, the bizarre shape of the rock in the background.
The solid green wall of vegetation on the right is designed in contrast to both the fantastic plant on the left and the bizarre, unreal rocks in the background. The crowns of the trees, carefully marked with evenly dotted whitewash strokes, imitating the play of sunlight on lush greenery, are closer to the painting of Giorgione rather than such northern masters as Albrecht Altdorfer, whose landscapes are saturated with the dynamics of lushly growing plant life.
Literature
- Trevin Coplestone. Hieronymous Bosch. Life and art. - M: “Labyrinth-K”, 1998.
- Devitini A. Bosch: Trans. from Italian/A. Devitini - M: AST Publishing House LLC: Astrel Publishing House LLC, 2002.
- Battilotti D. Bosch: Trans. from Italian/D. Battilotti - M: “White City”, 2000.
- Walter Bosing. Bosch: Trans. from German/V.Bosing - M: Art-Rodnik, 2001.
- History of art of foreign countries. Middle Ages, Renaissance / Ed. Ts. G. Nesselstrauss. M., 1982
- Fomin G.I. Hieronymus Bosch. M., 1974
- C. de Tolnay. Bosch. M., 1992
- G. Martin. Bosch. M., 1992
- K. S. Egorova. Three paintings by Bosch on the theme “The Thinker and Nature”. Sov. art history, vol. 19. M., 1985
- R. H. Mareynissen, P. Reifelare. Hieronymus Bosch: artistic heritage. M., 1998
JOHN THE BAPTIST IN THE DESERT
(Luke 1:80)
(80) And the child grew and was strengthened in spirit, and was in the wilderness until the day of his appearing to Israel.
(Luke 1:80)
The above quotation from Luke is all that the evangelist says about John’s childhood and subsequent life before his appearance to preach repentance. Whenever, according to the chronology of the Gospel story, the massacre of the infants occurred - immediately after the birth of Jesus or a year later (Dmitry Rostovsky in the life of Zechariah says that John was one and a half years old at that time, and he, as is known, was six months older than Jesus), - John, this little child, was left without a father early. It happened like this (according to a later tradition based on the story of the Proto-Gospel; the Church - both Western and Eastern - does not recognize the authenticity of this story): Herod, who knew about the extraordinary birth of John (see. THE GOSPEL OF ZECHARIAH, and BIRTH AND NAME OF JOHN THE BAPTIST AND JOHN THE BAPTIST), at first I didn’t give it due importance. But when the wise men from the east came to Jerusalem and asked about the born Messiah, he remembered John and sent assassins to destroy him too. Zechariah, John's father, a priest, was serving in the temple at that moment. The soldiers who were looking for the Baby Jesus in order to destroy Him, according to the orders of Herod, also came to Utah to destroy this baby here too. Elizabeth fled with her young son to save him. Herod sent his people to the temple to interrogate Zechariah, where did he hide his son? Zechariah replied: “I am a servant of God, I am in the temple and I do not know where my son is. And the servants came and told this to Herod. And Herod said in anger: His son will be king of Israel. And he sent servants to him again, saying: Tell me the truth, where is your son? For know that your life is in my power. And Zechariah answered: I am a martyr of God; if you shed my blood, the Lord will accept my soul, for you will shed innocent blood in front of the temple. And before dawn Zechariah was killed, and the children of Israel did not know that he had been killed” (Proto-Gospel, 23). Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, is mentioned for the last time in the Gospel in connection with the visit of the Virgin Mary to her (see. VIRGIN MARY'S VISIT TO ELIZABETH). When she died is not known. It can be assumed with a high degree of probability that John went to live in the desert when he became an orphan.
John's desert life is depicted in different ways: 1) he leaves his parents and goes to the places of his hermit life; An Angel leads him there; 2) John alone against the backdrop of a wooded landscape; at his feet there is a lamb - a symbol of the Lamb of God (Bassano); the lamb is often with a halo (Gärtgen tot Sint Jans).
Gertgen tot Sint Jans. John the Baptist in the desert. (End XV century). Berlin-Dahlem. Picture gallery of the State Museum.
As for John’s seeing off by his parents, from the above circumstances, namely the death of Zechariah, when John was only one and a half years old, it is clear that going into the desert father he could not. But the fact that he went into the desert, apparently in early youth, justifies the predilection of artists, especially Italian and Spanish masters XVI - XVII centuries, to portray John as a charming child or a comely youth. So, only Caravaggio created five or six versions of this plot - the young John the Baptist with or without a lamb: three of these paintings are in Rome (Doria Pamphili Gallery, Capitoline Museum and Borghese Gallery), the fourth, very beautiful in color, but with another composition, is kept in Basel (City Museum), the fifth - possibly a copy - in the cathedral in Toledo, the sixth - in Kansas City (Nelson Gallery).
Caravaggio. John the Baptist (end XVI century). Basel. Art Museum
A description of the external appearance of John the Baptist is given only by Matthew and Mark: “John himself had clothing made of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his loins, and his food was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4). In adulthood, John is depicted as emaciated, neglected, dressed in a tunic made of animal skin, with a leather belt. He can hold a honeycomb (an indication of what he ate in the desert).
John the Baptist's attribute is a reed cross, and sometimes he holds a font - a symbol of his mission as the Baptist. Another of his attributes is the Lamb, which in early images may have a cruciform halo. An inscription that very often appears in images of John is the words spoken by him when he saw Jesus coming towards him: “Ussu Fptgy Vush (Latin - “Behold the Lamb of God”) (John 1:3) (Caravaggio, Basel painting ). As a rule, John in the desert appears in a state of deep thought (Bassano, Geertgen tot Sint Jans) or prayers.
EXAMPLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS:
Donatello. John the Baptist. Berlin. Emperor Frederick Museum.
Gertgen tot Sint Jans. John the Baptist in the desert. (End of the 15th century). Berlin-Dahlem. Picture gallery of the State Museum.
Jacopo Bassano. John the Baptist in the desert. (Middle XVI century). Bassano. Urban museum.
Caravaggio. John the Baptist (1597-1598). Rome. Capitoline Museum.
Caravaggio. John the Baptist (late 16th century). Basel. Art Museum.
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