The trail of folly and madness in the picture of Bosch: visual analysis

In the essay, it carried out the visual analysis of the famous painting by I. Bosch, “Cure of Folly (Stone Operation),” which deals with the allegory of surgical cure for mental disorders. The literal embodiment of the metaphor and paths of insanity of both the patient and the quack doctor are included in the wide tradition of the early renaissance. The author follows the method of sequential analysis of visual images from a dense description of the visual series to the reconstruction of the meanings of the symbolic order and socio-cultural interpretation. The image of genre scene with the doctor, the patient and observers is structured through a rounded tondo method and combined with a textual frame in the style of the Gothic fracture, which refers to the client’s personal heraldic coat of arms. The bricolage of allegorical words and images complements each other and creates an intertextual space of meaning, to which semantic incongruity becomes a vehicle — flowers instead of expected stones. The hermeneutic tradition that has developed around the work of I. Bosch contradictory interpret this scene — from lithotomy by medical historians to a flower as an image of voluptuousness or a flower of wisdom (as a visual allegory of a philosopher's stone, elixir). But, the interpretation of the flower as a heraldic lily becomes more appropriate, taking into account the addressee of the picture, the reputation of customers and the rhyme of the formal characteristics of the picture with the style of the coat of arms of the customer. Bosch's painting with its hidden moral message is addressed to influential customers, metaphorically combining the meanings of folly stones and symbols of power.