Las tentaciones de san Antonio

When this was painted around 1520, the man who invented its nightmares was already dead. Hieronymus Bosch died in 1516, and the appetite for his swarming, demon-filled scenes only grew after him, so workshops and followers in the Low Countries kept turning out versions for buyers who could never get an original. This is one of those, made close in spirit to Bosch's famous Temptation now in Lisbon. The subject was already old: Anthony, a hermit who withdrew into the Egyptian desert in the 3rd century and was said to be set upon there by devils in every disguise, kneels at prayer while monsters crawl and fly around him. People prayed to him against a burning disease of the skin they called Saint Anthony's fire. The painter keeps Bosch's real trick, which is to make the horrors almost comic, part insect, part machine, part beast.