Compared to the grotesque and nightmarish figures in much of the work of Hieronymus Bosch, the subjects of “The Conjurers” [c. 1475] are rather sedate. A group on the left huddles over a table upon which are displayed cups, balls, and a magic wand. A frog is also present, possibly having just emerged from the mouth of the main figure – most likely a woman – leaning over the table from the left.
Theft of the Purse
Bosch’s hometown of s’Hertogenbosch, during his lifetime, was an important and growing market town. According to available records, the increasing population brought increases in theft. Because they had no fixed address, and because a tight-knit community like Bosch’s town would keep an eye out for strangers, travelers like the conjurer depicted here were objects of fascination but also of suspicion. Hawkers, musicians, storytellers, and magicians like this very conjurer were always in search of fascinated crowds to take advantage of.
In the back of the crowd a man dressed as a Dominican monk steals the money bag of the woman bent over the table. Bosch perhaps chooses a friar to depict as a thief because the Dominicans were both powerful and controversial. They abused the power of the Church to carry out the horrors of the Inquisition and to terrify people in the name of protecting them from witches. Perhaps Bosch believes the conjurer and the friar alike bait and prey upon gullible people.
The Conjurer’s Tall Hat
In “Hammer of the Witches,” a handbook for those who carried out the notorious Inquisition, women were depicted as frivolous creatures easily influenced by the devil. In Bosch’s painting, the conjurer influences the woman leaning over his table simply by looking into her eyes.
The conjurer wears a tall hat symbolic of the type worn by those in the ruling court. The Hapsburgs and the Burgundians ruled the day. Bosch’s town, part of the Burgundian kingdom, had just fallen to what the people viewed as the tyrannical Hapsburg empire. Because they extracted a tenth of the Church’s wealth in supplication, the Hapsburgs formed an alliance with the powerful Dominicans.
Just as Bosch uses the powerful Dominican friar in the form of a thief, he shows the elitist Burgundian ruler – symbolized by the tall hat – in the form of a common conjurer. Thus he views the people as subject to oppression and theft from both religious and worldly rulers.
Bosch seems to admonish his viewers that the world is full of deceivers we should not trust yet who succeed in taking advantage of us with all kinds of tricks.
Source:
- Hagen, Rose-Marie & Rainer. What Great Paintings Say: Old Masters in Detail. Cologne: Benedikt Tasche, 2000.
Read more about Hieronymus Bosch.
The Conjurers by Hieronymus Bosch
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