Moving Pictures: The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Joos van Craesbeeck, Moving Pictures, The...

All works in this style (Bosch, etc) intrigue me. Given the context of the times, I believe we can learn a great deal from the images chosen in this work and others such as "The Garden of Earthly Delights" in comparison to contemporary realism and post-modern works of the same genre such as Besinski.

St. Anthony supposedly died of ergotism (infection by ergot), and many of these images evoke the horrific hallucinations said to accompany the condition. However, there are other specific references that immediately stand out to me...the soldier with the enormous knife, the academics within his head, and most notably...the character in the far right wearing a letter, "A", perhaps a symbol for Alchemy?

What's also notable is the lack of references to "other" temptations common to similar works of the period. For example, the few females depicted evoke images that do not seem to directly point to the sensual...though I interpret the young gypsy woman above the "Alchemist" to be a reference to Eastern mysticism, possibly venus herself.

To my mind, the entire work focuses on the dangers of arcane knowledge and references St. Anthony's illness with remarkable specificity.

Thank you for the excellent share.