The Hermit Saint

Tree-ring dating places this triptych around 1493, early in Bosch's career, and it is one of a small group of his works that somehow ended up in Venice, far from the Low Countries where he worked. Three hermit saints kneel in wild, half-ruined landscapes, each having withdrawn from the world to pray. Anthony is beset by little demons, with two naked figures half-hidden behind a curtain to test him. Jerome kneels at a broken altar clutching a stone he beats himself with. Giles has an arrow lodged in his chest and a deer beside him that legend says fed him with her milk. Bosch fills the ground around them with the same strange half-lit detail he is famous for, small threats creeping in at the edges of men who came here to be left alone.