There is one curious detail in Hieronymus Bosch’s works, whether painting or drawing, that puts the person looking at them in a rather awkward, unsettled position. Bosch’s viewer is a scrutiniser, since this art consists mainly of tiny details and complex elements that set the visual and semantic rhythm of the image. As you peer closely at the sometimes rather gruesome storylines, you get the impression that you, too, are being scrutinised. The presence of an observer is easily sensed in the recognition of pleasure in what is seen in the painting, something that, in theory, ought to horrify. But no. The viewer likes what he sees but tries to hide it. Someone nearby notices the rush of endorphins from immersion in the theme of lust and the Fall.
Having become completely absorbed in the seductive world Hieronymus invited him to look into, and wandering almost in oblivion through the garden of delights, the viewer suddenly stumbles upon a character gazing straight at him. Here, at the point of an unexpected meeting of two gazes, the artist has caught his viewer “by the tail”. He has caught him in the act of enjoying. The scene in which the one who examines human vices with pleasure, while trying to hide it, is caught is constructed by means of an outside observer: the owl. It is from the owl that the viewer hides.
The discovery of what is hidden produces enjoyment, but the hiding of what has been discovered also serves to produce it.
The owl is present, not always obviously, in all of Bosch’s works. Its gaze is directed either at the viewer or at the unfolding scene the artist shows. In either case, the owl is looking at you, either as someone outside the painting or as someone already taking part in the events depicted. It is all one scene.
Why an owl in particular, and what it symbolises, is another, no less interesting subject that reveals new facets of Hieronymus’s art.