Added to portraits to indicate the sagacity of the subject, owls were dear to the heart and brush of Hieronymus Bosch.
Américo
Faust lusts after the young Gretchen. Mephistopheles sets up a meeting, and the girl is soon in love with Faust, ready to do anything for him. And so she does.
She has been a symbol of French nationalism, of the revanchism following the Franco-Prussian War, and then of early feminism: some wonderful paintings of Joan’s divine visions.
What do Bosch’s many owls signify? Wisdom, night, or something more sinister?
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