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__NOTOC__ ''Cutting the Stone'', also called ''The Extraction of the Stone of Madness'' or ''The Cure of Folly'', is a
painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
by
Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (, ; born Jheronimus van Aken ;  – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/ Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on o ...
, displayed in the Museo del Prado in
Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...
, completed around 1494 or later. The painting depicts a surgeon, wearing a
funnel A funnel is a tube or pipe that is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, used for guiding liquid or powder into a small opening. Funnels are usually made of stainless steel, aluminium, glass, or plastic. The material used in its construct ...
hat, removing the
stone of madness The stone of madness, also called stone of folly, was a hypothetical stone in a patient's head, thought to be the cause of madness, idiocy or dementia. From the 15th century onwards, removing the stone by trepanation was proposed as a remedy. Thi ...
from a patient's head by
trepanation Trepanning, also known as trepanation, trephination, trephining or making a burr hole (the verb ''trepan'' derives from Old French from Medieval Latin from Greek , literally "borer, auger"), is a surgical intervention in which a hole is drill ...
. An assistant, a monk bearing a tankard, stands nearby. Playing on the double-meaning of the word (stone or bulb), the stone appears as a flower bulb, while another flower rests on the table. A woman with a book balanced on her head looks on. The inscription in gold-coloured
Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
script reads: ''Lubbert Das'' was a comical (foolish) character in
Dutch literature Dutch language literature () comprises all writings of literary merit written through the ages in the Dutch language, a language which currently has around 23 million native speakers. Dutch-language literature is the product of the Netherlands, Be ...
.


Interpretations

It is possible that the flower hints that the doctor is a charlatan as does the funnel hat. The woman balancing a book on her head is thought by Skemer to be a satire of the
Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
custom of wearing amulets made out of books and scripture, a pictogram for the word
phylactery Phylactery () originally referred to tefillin, leather boxes containing Torah verses worn by some Jews when praying. In Mandaeism, some different types of phylacteries are known as ''zrazta'' and ''qmaha'', a list of which can be found at list of ...
.Skemer 2006:24. Otherwise, she is thought to depict folly. Michel Foucault, in his '' History of Madness'', says "Bosch's famous doctor is far more insane than the patient he is attempting to cure, and his false knowledge does nothing more than reveal the worst excesses of a madness immediately apparent to all but himself."


References


Further reading

*(book on head)
Binding Words Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages
'. Skemer, Don C. PA:
Penn State University Press The Penn State University Press, also known as The Pennsylvania State University Press, was established in 1956 and is a non-profit publisher of scholarly books and journals. It is the independent publishing branch of the Pennsylvania State Un ...
, 2006. p. 24, 136n. .
"Extracting the Stone of Madness in perspective: the cultural and historical development of an enigmatic visual motif from Hieronymus Bosch: a critical status quaestionis
at academia.edu
"A Stone Never Cut for: A New Interpretation of The Cure of Folly by Jheronimus Bosch"
in '' Urologia Internationalis'' {{ACArt 1494 paintings Paintings by Hieronymus Bosch Paintings of the Museo del Prado by Dutch artists