The Garden Of Earthly Delights, Hell - With Rabbit
Today I saw a picture by harbinger-project I have not seen before.
Guessing that it was from The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hell, by
Bosch I soon found what he was referring to. This masterpiece triptych
is extremely hard for someone like me with no grounding in the history
of the time and place to interpret. In this detail from the original
painting, above, a gambler (?) is being abused by a hybrid shrew/skate
creature. He wears a shield on his back with a hand in a benediction
gesture balancing a die, the hand pinned to it by a knife. In
harbinger's version the hand is spouting a flame. Since his work can be
as difficult to interpret as anything by Bosch I am guessing the hand
represents knowledge, immobilized and punished. But it is the rabbit I
cannot figure out. He carries a form of glaive, designed for yanking
cavalrymen off their mounts. If that's a specialized hunting spear I
cannot find an example of one, the spear pictured is too light for a
battlefield. On it he bears a woman hanging from her feet, with fire
spouting from her belly. He seems to be wearing ecclesiastical
clothing, and a large open purse dangles from his belt, probably a game
bag. In addition to all of that he has a hunting horn in his left, er...hand. It
may be that the rabbit represents unbridled lust. Try though I might I
cannot find any meaning to this, often Bosch alluded to sayings and folk
tales that are obscure to us today. Back in the day pictures of
rabbits hunting humans was a popular marginalia illustration.
But
it don't look good for the upside down lady. Chaosfive-55 is
sponsering a contest based on The Ship Of Fools, in this post he has a
picture and a recording of a choir from Hell, The Garden of Earthly
Delights, singing from a score written on someone's ass, probably with a
red hot iron. No, a weird demon uses his notes shaped tongue to do the writing. Oh, well, I'm sure it hurt.
Someone Bosch knew is being insulted.
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