From the Middle Ages to the 20th century a theme in Western culture that provides the painter with a wonderful opportunity to exercise his imagination ...

3. From the Middle Ages to the 20th century a theme in Western culture
that provides the painter with a wonderful opportunity to exercise his imagination ...

4. The Temptation of Saint Anthony
in Western painting

6. A semi-desert landscape where three devils violently confront St Anthony ...
a sky furrowed by clouds to underline the suffering of the saint
the saint lies on the ground, wrapped in the sky-colored garment of trust in God
and in the gray cloak of penance,
the serene face, the golden halo, the tau-shaped staff
and
is completely helpless against the ferocious aggression of three demons,clearly fallen
angels by their wings,
part animal and part man, with horns, one grabs him by a lock of hair, the other sticks
him and a third uses a pair of snakes as a whip to hit him
Stefano di Giovanni known as il Sassetta, ou Il Sassetta
St Antony Beaten by the Devils or St Anthony the Hermit Tortured by the Devils
Saint Antoine battu par les diables ou Saint Antoine l'Ermite torturé par les démons
1423
Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, Siena

8. Anthony's second temptation on a rock-strewn path ...
the luminous sky at dusk,
un deep wilderness uncanny, punctuated by fire-blasted trees,
a sequence of still beasts - a rabbit, two deer, another rabbit,
a sinister lake and a dark tower, surveyed by ominous crows
Anthony, throws up his hands in frozen horror.
The focus of his gaze was originally a heap of diabolic riches ...
... at some point early in the painting's history, the heap of gold, which had been shown
on the ground near the rabbit, was obliterated, removing the cause of the saint's gesture.
Master of the Osservanza, Maître de l'Observance
Saint Anthony Abbot Tempted by a Heap of Gold
Saint Antoine abbé tenté par un tas d'or
1440
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

11. The earliest known painting by Michelangelo, painted as a close copy of the famous engraving
by Martin Schongauer when he was only 12 or 13 years old.
Saint Anthony is elevated in a rocky place surrounded by demons ...
white face, shows deep empathy,
not looking at the demons around him but is looking off to the sky.
9 demons with different types of claws pulling at the saint:
a demon holding his right hand and the stick, another trying to remove his halo,
as the other is pulling on his robe,
a devil has breasts and a face in its perineum,
a weird fish has many spines and a trunk-like snout
Michelangelo, Michel-Ange, Attributed to, attribué à
The Torment of Saint Anthony
Le Tourment de saint Antoine
1487-1488
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

15. Anthony fiercely attacked by demons, trampled to the ground, beaten with sticks, torn by claws and
bitten; he appeals to God for help who sends angels to combat the demons ...
the poor hermit, dressed in a heavy blue tunic, dragged by his hair,
a bird pounces on him brandishing a stick,
a kind of armored chicken bites the holy man's hand ...
If you look closely, all the drama is in the obscene and pitiful figure of the poor sick man, in a red
hood, who is in the foreground on the left side of the panel.
The swollen belly, the body plagued with putrefaction of pustules and buboes, writhes in hopeless
pain, except that represented by the angels in the sky and who come to alleviate his sufferings.
It is not important to debate, whether the evil that devours him is that, with terrible effects, of the fire
of Saint Anthony (which the good monks of Isemheim tried to cure) or the equally filthy syphilis.
The suffering figure becomes the metaphor of the despair into which man can fall.
Who, if not him, can pronounce the words written on the poster in the lower left part of the painting:
Bone Jhesu, ubi eras, quare non affuisti ut sanares vulnera mea?
Matthias Grünewald
Isenheim Altarpiece, Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons
Retable d'Issenheim, L’Agression de saint Antoine par les démons
1515-1516
Musée d'Unterlinden, Colmar

20. A burning village illuminates the dusky background …
St Anthony, kneeling, his right hand raised in blessing
and
almost unnoticed in the midst of the hellish activity:
a black-skinned priestess holds a vessel with a toad, the animal in turns holds
an egg,
a black-dressed singer has a pig face and a little owl above his head,
a woman wearing a helmet resembling a hollow tree,
two patients with the disease of ergotism or "St Anthony's Fire", who were
dismembered by gangrene and had to be amputated,
a ship-shaped bird, flying fish and winged boats ...
Hieronymus Bosch, Jérôme Bosch
Triptych of the Temptation of St. Anthony, Central panel: The temptation of St. Anthony
Triptyque de la Tentation de saint Antoine, Panneau central : La Tentation de Saint Antoine
1500
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

23. St. Anthony absorbed in his thoughts among the wilds of nature …
the pig with a bell on its ear is at his feet and oblivious to the assault of the devil
that is about to hit it with a mallet.
Hieronymus Bosch, Jérôme Bosch
The Temptation of St Anthony
La Tentation de saint Antoine
1515
Museo del Prado, Madrid

26. a house, with the head of an old woman,
a dovecot,
a young nude woman at the door
and a swan painted on the signboard
- all suggestive of a brothel
a woman in a boat moored to the riverbank,
monks close to a burning monastery;
and demons flying over the flames,
a fish flying into the clouds is being ridden by a figure whose habit and cowl appear
to identify him as a Franciscan friar
and
Saint Anthony, the distinctive cape bearing the Tau cross, the rosary with a little bell,
leaning on a rock, hands joined as though in prayer,
who seems insensitive to fire, to the attack of a monastery by flying demons and to
the temptations represented by an apple (Eve’s sin) placed in front of him.
Jheronimus Bosch, Jérôme Bosch, follower, atelier ou suiveur de
The Temptations of Saint Anthony
La Tentation de saint Antoine
1500-1510
Museo del Prado, Madrid

29. A mountain, towns and villages;
the gradient sky, bears heavy dark clouds ...
three women tempt Saint Anthony,
one offers him an apple, an allusion to original sin,
another speaks to him, trying to reassure him,
the third caresses his neck.
Symbol of the demon, a little monkey pulls the habit of the saint.
Smaller scenes flank this main image:
Saint Anthony is again subjected to temptation, this time by a queen and her attendants;
the saint, with his hair on fire, then attacked by animals and hybrid creatures who precede
the arrival of a horde of monsters.
Joachim Patinier, Quentin Massys
Temptation of Saint Anthony
Tentation de saint Antoine
1515
Museo del Prado, Madrid

33. A fantastical universe with imaginary animals that lie in wait for the saint
and which recall the work of Hieronymus Bosch ...
a group of naked women who represent carnal temptation:
Saint Anthony fervently praying before a crucifix to defeat the evil
that has presented itself to him in female form.
Jan Wellens de Cock
The Temptation of Saint Anthony
La Tentation de saint Antoine
1520
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

36. an almost completely realist landscapes
and
Saint Anthony with two naked women,
a madam
a pot-bellied man,
and
a creature with an inverted funnel on its head,
and a little group which seem to have invaded from the mind of Bosch …
Cornelis Massijs, attributed to, attribué à
The Temptation of Saint Anthony
La Tentation de saint Antoine
1540
Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België
Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique, Brussels

39. Struck down by the devil who threatens him with a horse's foot,
the saint nevertheless resists carnal temptation ...
The monumentality of the characters,
the powerful musculature of the devil,
the flesh of the seductress (whose left breast seems to have been accidentally stripped)
...
a profoundly different conception ... it is clear that Veronese had not encountered
Bosch's work ...
Paolo Veronese
The Temptation of Saint Anthony
La tentation de saint Antoine
1552-1553
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen

42. Just a century after Bosch painted his triptych ...
the saint absorbed in his reading and meditations
and
an most horrendous symbiosis of mammals, birds, reptiles and fish:
symbols of the Deadly Sins sloth, gluttony, wrath, greed, pride, envy, lust;
likewise, symbols of the sicknesses the saint healed, mainly the plague and syphilis
and
a flock of diabolic beings disguised as women:
an elegant lady, a beautiful woman adorned with magnificent jewels,
a completely naked woman
and
Saint Anthony, who is ascending to heaven, surrounded by a legion of demons …
Jan Brueghel the Elder, Jan Brueghel l'Ancien
The Temptation of Saint Anthony
La tentation de saint Antoine
1610
Museo Nacional de San Gregorio, Valladolid

46. Joos van Craesbeeck was using some of Bosch’s iconography …
Anthony clutching the Scriptures to fortify himself,
a lascivious woman leans provocatively holding a cup with alcohol,
a naked man sits on a duck-horse,
a broken egg, snakes, crabs and other such creatures
and
an giant head of a man, from which countless devils arise, as evil
thoughts given physical form;
in his forehead devilish beings have lodged themselves, a painter,
an eyeglass, and a bird’s nest …
leaving the viewer to wonder at their enigmatic meaning.
Joos van Craesbeeck
The Temptation of St. Anthony
La Tentation de Saint Antoine
1650
Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe

50. What is this woman doing in such an inhospitable place? …
Under her dress, we can guess a reptile tail and clawed legs.
This hybrid being is a temptress: the glass of wine she holds out is an invitation to
earthly pleasures and... to lust.
Sent as a trick of the devil, she comes to lay a trap to make the faith of the saint
waver.
The poor saint, many times in his life put to the test by Satan, will manage to resist
these tormenting demons!
The hybrid bestiary painted by Teniers to evoke the evil forces is taken directly from
the repertoire of the great Flemish artist Jerome Bosch.
David Teniers the Younger, David Teniers le Jeune
The Temptation of Saint Anthony
La Tentation de saint Antoine
1650
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille

54. In 1874 the third and final version of "La tentation de saint Antoine" by Gustave Flaubert
was published.
Possibly this would be the reason that led Cézanne in the mid-1870s to make this canvas,
The kneeling friar, rejecting the temptation of lust personified in a voluptuous naked woman,
accompanied by a large chorus of also naked cupids.
A devil stands behind the saint and harasses him so that he directs his gaze towards
the woman, trying to make him fall into her temptation.
Paul Cézanne
The Temptation of Saint Anthony
La Tentation de saint Antoine
1877
Musée d’Orsay, Paris

57. Saint Anthony with his hands on his head.
He looks shocked, outraged by what he sees …
books,
a pig,
a naked woman on the cross, with a crown of flowers on her head
Christ, with blood on his chest, stigmata on his hands, a yellow halo above his head
and the crown of thorns,
the word EROS replacing the normal initialism of INRI,
a jester dressed in orange, smiles and directs his gaze to Saint Anthony.
This jester is Satan, thus the painter shows that the devil can be in every man …
Félicien Rops
La tentation de Saint Antoine
The Temptation of St Anthony
1878
Cabinet des estampes, Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier, Brussels

61. A really bewildering parade of elephants led by a horse …
The Saint is naked, (perhaps suggesting his vulnerability),
holds up a cross as a weapon,
his left arm he supports on a stone (could represent the Roman Catholic Church),
a human skull lies by his right foot.
The elephants carry symbolic objects representing temptation:
a statue of a nude woman holding her breasts,
an obelisk,
a building complex confining a nude, disembodied female torso,
a vertical tower.
The animals have exaggerated, long, spindly legs, making them appear weightless.
Two men argue,
and
a white angel flies over the desert.
Salvador Dalí
La Tentation de saint Antoine
The Temptation of St. Anthony
1946
Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels

65. This painting, 377 years old, is one of the most extravagant and spectacular creations
of all Baroque painting ...
Saint Anthony is distracted from meditation by the sudden appearance of a really
weird monster:
a sexually mixed, perhaps hermaphrodite creature
the body resembles the skeleton of a bird,
the head is that of an equid with several boar tusks,
the snaking tail recalls that of a rat;
It has a navel (and so, a mother, sometime!), tits and a very tiny cock (!).
It is The Devil …
an awful nightmare far from the goat-like hybrids, the half-dragons, the mystical
creatures with large, still angelical wings, or the foxy-looking and tempting women
of traditional religious iconography.
Salvator Rosa
Temptation of Saint Anthony
La Tentation de Saint Antoine
1645
Pinacoteca Rambaldi di Villa Luca a Coldirodi, San Remo

68. a swampy pond ...
Anthony wearing red robes, on his face is an expression
of utmost terror.
Horribly strange creatures, grotesque mixtures of mammals
and insects, with fur and shells, claws and jagged teeth,
wings and beady eyes, they tear at Anthony's face
and clothes.
However, in the background there is a dangerous seduction:
a ruined building, whose architecture takes the form
of a naked woman and a female figure, nailed to a cross.
Max Ernst
The Temptation of Saint Anthony
La Tentation de Saint Antoine
1945
Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg

71. Based on an episode in Flaubert's book of the same title,
in which St Anthony is tempted by the Queen of Sheba ...
She appears before him with a train of exotic attendants, including an elephant,
an monkey, camels and women astride horses.
Lovis Corinth
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (after Gustave Flaubert)
La Tentation de Saint Antoine (après Gustave Flaubert)
1908
Tate Gallery, London

74. Inspired by Hieronymus Bosch, Carrington's painting is equally mysterious …
a monastic robe "bleached by the vagaries of time", with tiny hands and feet, three long-bearded
old men observe the course of a river that a kneeling man pours from a Roman amphora.
The scene is completed by
a herd of sheep,
a pig lying at the saint's feet,
five women spreading the veil of a sixth woman blowing a twisted trumpet
and a mysterious bald-headed girl in a red dress that combines female charm
and the delights of the table.
Leonora Carrington, eternally humorous and cryptic said:
“The picture seems pretty clear to me, being a more or less a literal rendering of St Anthony
complete with pig, desert and temptation. Naturally, one could ask why the venerable holy man
has three heads, to which one could always reply, why not?”
Léonora Carrington
The Temptation of St. Anthony
La Tentation de Saint Antoine
1945
Private collection

78. o.esqsegues@gmail.com
The Temptation of Saint Anthony in Western painting
La Tentation de saint Antoine dans la peinture occidentale
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