Hermitary - Gallery - Art

About the images on this page

St. Anthony the Great (251-356) is considered by historians to be the founder of eremitism in ancient Christianity. The theme of the temptation of St. Anthony is derived from the biograpy of Anthony by Athanasius of Alexandria (296-373). The biography is not historical but hagiographical, a catalog of dramatic demonic events: interventions, seductions, and fearful apparitions that Anthony regularly rebuffs.
The anecdotes of Athanasius were basically two: the instances of demonic seduction (in female form) and the displays of demonic monsters, elevations, corporal violence (not depicted by the artists), and combats in the air. Note the sanguine status depicted in Bosch (3), van Leyden (8), Huys (10, and Teniers (16). The paintings capture the imagination of Renaissance and early modern artists in the Low Countries, Germany, and Italy. The artists were impressed not merely by the particular events but by the memory of lost hermits and their presumed moral power versus the atists's own era of ambiguity, the original moral sentiment or psychology of the hermits projected into the social and cultural upheavels of the early modern era. Hence the overarching themes of renunciation, will, and the temptations of the world.
All of the paintings are titled "The Temptation of St. Anthony" or a slight variation.