Hieronymus Bosch and the Concert in the Egg

No metaphoric at all, this Hieronymus Bosch painting is as realistic as it could be: there is a real concert inside the philosophical Egg.

Hieronymus Bosch Concert in the Egg, Lille Palais des beaux-arts

The third part of our alchemical works is “Ars Musicae”, or art of the music because we can detect it with our ears. The “light which can be seen with the ears” is an astonishing natural phenomenon representing a sort of “door” for the lucky few lucky ones who witness the spectacle. Hieronymus Bosch is the renaissance painter who, per antonomasia, has better described every possible overtone of this weird aspect of Alchemy.

We need not go round and round about Bosch as a painter well immersed in hermetic and alchemical symbolism, being undeniably immersed in the esoteric culture of his time. To an extent, there isn’t a single detail in his works that cannot be defined with a sapiential double sense. Indeed, if not read through the alchemical lens, the work of Hieronymus Bosch appears to us as a mere infantile divertissement with a unique and bottomless creativity.

Usually described alternatively as a hymn to the stupidity of human habits or otherwise to salvation from foolishness through learned brotherhoods – which, to the outside eye, might appear to be a clique of more or less tipsy Goliards – this oil on panel is attributed to Hieronymus Bosch, although the original is missing. The copy we are examining is currently exposed in Lille at Palais des Beaux-Arts and is probably late; the verses in the musical score belong to a ribald sixteenth-century song.

The “Concert in an egg” melodic aspects are a prologue to the famous and crazy “Triptych of Delights”. The adjective “melodic” is not used meaninglessly here: in the last part of the third work (see Opus Magnum scheme), the Egg sings or emits clear musical whistles – the detail of the red character of the whistle in the painting, deriving from the “ perfect red“ of the last alchemical firing.

We have already seen it in the description that Canseliet gave of his week of weeks: the Philosophical Egg (1) tends to gain weight and, at regular 24h intervals, emits high-pitched sounds, almost “breathing“, even if we do not know What. The notes should be seven and, incredibly, set according to the most linear musical scale. The goofy characters sing from inside the egg following a real musical score.

hieronymus bosch preparatory drawing concert egg berlin kupterstichkabinett — Hieronymus Bosch preparatory drawing for concert egg, Berlin Kupterstichkabinett

Attributed to Hieronymus Bosch is also the preparatory drawing on the left (conserved at Kupterstichkabinett, Berlin). As you can see, the fool characters are seven, like the note that should be emitted in case of successful cooking. On a side, an eighth one is ready to make his way out. This would be the alchemic apotheosis, the eighth note that marks the appearance of the Stone. When Apollo’s lyre certifies the seven notes’ sacred process and enumeration. And the hanging serpent attests to the strength of our “flowing ” first matter, or Mercurius.

The presence of the owl, the nocturnal bird, certifies the presence of Hephaestus, Athena, and Prometheus, respectively, divinities of the forge, of sacred knowledge, and of the Secret Fire. The round building stands for a final rotation of color, and the white stork means that our dissolvent is still helpful in this final part; there is a tortoise at the bottom: the still living animal from which Mercury makes the lyre that he will give to Apollo.

This is the last cooking, as the grilling fish can witness, performed by real fire and the sensitivity of the cat’s whiskers. This last detail reveals this is a work eminently performed by nature.

It follows a monkey. I would not be mistaken, but the monkey commonly depicts the human mind: symbol of the patient and humble alchemist, or of the human claim to get by on its own without waiting for the response of the Art?

The tiny characters at the bottom may represent the planets turning inside the tube-egg device. Bosch doesn’t tell us about the Planets’ order; this would not be an idle question, as a particular order may represent the colors, while another one is the stairs of density, so the sounds. There is also a tiny light inside. The stone should appear in the end as a bit of vitrification.

Inside the Egg, a tree grows, holding a basket with an egg, a cooked chicken, and crows; an amphora is fastened or suspended by a branch. A whole bunch of symbols points to the construction and keeping of the oven, with the hanging of the remora, regimens of fire, and wastes to throw. This will be the cosmic oven of the philosopher, Vas Hermetis. Another renaissance master, Piero della Francesca, will portray the same Egg in suspension.

Finally, if fate wants, the purse-money box, beside the donkey alchemist, will do a slit, and one will see what’s inside.

Now we have to look at the astonishing details of the mathematical proportions by which the philosophical weights tend to “compose” their musical score.