Saint Jacques et le magicien Hermogène

Hieronymus Bosch had been dead about 30 years when this small panel was painted, yet its swarming devils and grotesque creatures are pure Bosch. By the mid-1500s his nightmarish inventions had become collectors' items across Europe, and painters who never knew him kept turning them out. The story comes from the medieval Golden Legend: the magician Hermogenes sends demons to seize Saint James the Greater, and the apostle turns the devils back on their master, leaving them to drag Hermogenes about until he repents. The unknown painter sets it in a fantastical landscape crawling with half-animal fiends. Around a chapel-like building at the right, the human figures go quietly about the miracle while the monsters make all the noise.