Cutting the Stone

Cutting the Stone
Cutting the Stone
Artist Hieronymus Bosch
Year c. 1494 or later
Type Oil on board
Dimensions 48 cm × 35 cm (19 in × 14 in)
Location Museo del Prado, Madrid

Cutting the Stone, also called The Extraction of the Stone of Madness or The Cure of Folly, is a painting by Hieronymus Bosch in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, completed around 1494 or later.

The painting depicts the extraction of the stone of madness, a "keye" (modern Dutch: kei) (in English a "stone" or "bulb") from a patient's head, using trepanation by a man wearing a funnel hat.[1] In the painting Bosch has exchanged the traditional "stone" as the object of extraction with the bulb of a flower. Another flower is on the table.

The Gothic inscription reads

Meester snyt die keye ras
Myne name Is lubbert Das

(in English: "Master, cut away the stone
my name is Lubbert das").

Lubbert Das was a comical (foolish) character in Dutch literature.

Contents

Interpretations

It is possible that the flower is a pun on "tulip head" - meaning mad in Netherlands. Another possibility is that the flower hints that the doctor is a charlatan as does the funnel hat. The woman balancing a book on her head is thought by Skemmer to be a satire of the Flemish custom of wearing amulets made out of books and scripture, a pictogram for the word phylactery.[2] Otherwise, she is thought to depict folly.

Attributed works

This painting, and others by Bosch, were an inspiration to the works of the seminal Punk musicians Wire. On their album, "The Ideal Copy", they included a track titled "Madman's Honey" which included the lyric "master cut the stone out, my name is Lubbert Das" — a direct reference to this Bosch painting.

External links

Media related to Cutting the Stone at Wikimedia Commons

References

  1. ^ Povoledo, Elisabetta (October 27, 2008). "In Rome, a New Museum Invites a Hands-On Approach to Insanity". The Economist. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/arts/design/28insa.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss. Retrieved 2008-10-28. "The logo of the Mind’s Museum is an overturned funnel. It is a reference to a 15th-century painting by Hieronymus Bosch that depicts a doctor using a scalpel to extract an object (the supposed “stone of madness”) from the skull of a patient. The doctor is wearing a funnel as a hat." 
  2. ^ Skemer 2006:24.

Further reading


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