Glacial Errata No. 24

One: The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Michelangelo (1487-88)

Two: The Temptation of Saint Anthony [Isenheim Altarpiece], Matthias Grünewald (1511-1516)

The panic-stricken
kink in the neck to be seen
in all of Grünewald’s subjects,
exposing the throat and often turning
the face towards a blinding light,
is the extreme response of our bodies
to the absence of balance in nature
which blindly makes one experiment after another
and like a senseless botcher
undoes the thing it has only just achieved.
To try out how far it can go
is the sole aim of this sprouting,
perpetuation and proliferation
inside us also and through us and through
the machines sprung from our heads,
all in a single jumble,
while behind us already the green
trees are leaving their leaves…

(W. G. Sebald, After Nature)

Three: The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Joos van Craesbeeck (circa 1650)

Four: Tribulations of Saint Anthony, James Ensor (1887)

Five: The Temptation of St. Anthony, Max Ernst (1945)

Madness also exerts a fascination because it is knowledge. These strange forms belong from the outset to the great secret, and Saint Anthony is tempted by them because he has fallen prey not to the violence of desire but rather to the far more insidious vice of curiosity.

(Michel Foucault, History of Madness)