Video 10. Three Stories of Motherly Love

Let's not sprain our brain looking for symbols when there is so much more to discover in front of our eyes.

Text of the video:

I'm kind of really excited by this discovery. I don't think any of the Bosch professors have put this together before, so let's have a go.

I was reading about the importance of Bosch's symbolism and looking at this peculiar, this esoteric cameo where one symbologist claims that the three-branched tree here, represents the holy trinity?

And maybe it does, and equally, maybe it doesn't. I'm not sure how much it matters either way – but the more interesting thing was not symbolic but literal. the bare being carried off - because that starts off a train of connections back into the painting

That was what excited me.

So, Mother bare has been snatched and is being carried away. But not so fast. You think it might be a father bare? Yup, I'm going with mother. I've seen what may be the absent, delinquent father over here – we'll come back to him later.

The story continues with the little bare cubb we can see down below. So, Maybe he doesn't quite know it yet, how alone he is in the world. But the story takes another step forward. his situation is not unique. He is looking across into the next panel where stands a fawn. And she's by herself as well. She has a brave stance - but she looks a little tense. Maybe she senses danger. She has wandered from her family. Her mother - over here – she has just realised her daughter is not where she should be.

She's looking around for her.

And her motherly anxiety is not without cause.

We know that because a lion has caught and killed and is eating another of their kind.

So, the fawn and her mother are in peril whether they realise it or not. They are both beauties, and of a noble species. But – Bosch is telling us that beauty and nobility are no protection. Because, here he shows us the opposite, this third mother - this, unlovely animal, this heavy and a little bit horrible – hog. But – Whatever her aesthetic deficiencies, She is a good mother - a better mother than the others – more obviously capable of seeing off a predator.

This handsome, dancing, dragon, this fire breathing creature with a breast of flame - for all his fancy footwork, he is no match for the snarling, scowling, sow - in all her glorious ugliness.

And see how her children admire and emulate her. they're like a dance troop, following their mother's example, high stepping, right foot forward. And one! – and two! And three! And four!

The eminent Netherlandish scholar and symbologist Dirk Bax, told us back in the nineteen fifties

The sattyrists among our medieval painters and sculptors knew the pig as a symbol not only of gluttony, but also of lust - and filth.

yeah, right. And don't forget laziness. But that's where over-emphasizing symbolism puts us wrong. This motherly pig does not here talk to us of gluttony, lust, laziness or filth. What she is doing here is successfully protecting her little ones – unlike the two other mothers in the narrative.

Isn't this a better way of understanding what Bosh is doing – because to get here, we have exercised the first obligation of art critique –which surely involves, looking at the art. It's not primarily seeking esoteric meanings from outside the painting– but what the visual facts are saying to us directly.

I suspect, Ivy league professors, will see this 'looking at the artwork' as a vulgar – almost Lutheran - fundamentalism. Well, so be it

Because – without looking, how will we see the hundred and one extra delights, that are hiding in plain sight - in Bosch's earthly Garden?

And now, a coda. the little cub's father. Here's my fancy. Could he be this bare climbing a tree? Interestingly, Bear and madronnyo tree make up the heraldic emblem of Madrid city. Previous videos in this series have established madronnyo as a source of super-potent alcohol. It's just plausible that we have an example of delinquent fatherhood? And that maybe – just maybe - father and son will be reunited. It's a small point, maybe it takes and maybe it doesn't. For me? It's a little extra - extra delight.

Thank you for your company. See you again – I hope – soon