wanting more

by maureen coffey

Throughout the center panel of his painting, Hieronymus Bosch depicts lust as a form of evil. He illustrates this in this particular scene as a group of naked people support a massive berry in an almost ritualistic fashion– they hold it up and gawk at it like they are overcome by their desire for it. They also appear to have no awareness of their surroundings as they praise and lust after the fruit. With this, Bosch urges his viewer to consider how this depicts a mirror into their own life, and why it is so dangerous to become engulfed in one’s own desires. 
In the context of today, this motif offers insights into the repercussions of idolizing scientists in their search for more information and endlessly consuming the media content and studies that they produce. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the relationship between Mr. Kurtz and Marlow helps us understand this phenomenon as it mimics the way we “lust” after new information from scientists and explorers. Marlow describes Mr. Kurtz as, “‘an emissary of pity and science and progress, and devil knows what else. We want,’ he began to declaim suddenly, ‘for the guidance of the cause entrusted to us by Europe, so to speak, higher intelligence, wide sympathies, a singleness of purpose.’” Marlow illustrates how we seek and idolize from the explorers a depiction of what is real, of what exists beyond humans, through their words and their description of what they saw. In hearing their perception of reality through language, we can determine that our current perception of reality and the world around us is not all encompassing and is not entirely real, but I argue that until we go out and experience the world for ourselves, we will not actually have clarity on what is real.
I illustrate this phenomenon in my collage, as I replace the desired berry with Pablo Picasso’s Fruit Bowl with Fruit, a version of the berry that is fabricated and posed specifically for the painting– it is not a depiction of reality in its natural state. This symbolizes how the content that we consume via social media and language from scientists does not depict reality, but we desire it anyway. I then include Rene Magritte’s painting, The Lovers, but interrupt the two people’s kiss with the fruit bowl. This signifies how our real interactions and experiences in the world are interrupted by the content that we consume on a daily basis as they pull us away from the real world. Lastly, I include Magritte’s painting, The False Mirror which depicts a single eye with the sky surrounding the pupil– commonly interpreted as urging the viewer to question their view on the world.  In my collage, I use the eye to invite the viewer into the painting, signaling to them that the scene is a mirror into their own life, and the way we lust over a fake reality should be questioned. The cyclical nature of idolizing scientists, encouraging them to find more information, consuming the information without actually experiencing the world for ourselves, and then believing that the view they offer us is all encompassing, separates people from the real world and does not urge anyone to care about the natural world.