A scene of racy bathing pleasure as a social critique
The Reformation brought stricter social mores to many places in Europe, and artists had to adapt if they didn’t want to lose commissions. But these social mores were not popular with everyone – as revealed by this painting by Hans Bock in Basel’s Kunstmuseum.
Barbara Basting
Barbara Basting worked as a cultural editor and currently heads the visual arts division in the City of Zurich’s Culture Department.
The bathers are sitting in walled spa baths and the backdrop is suggestive of an Alpine landscape. Like on a theatre stage, the action in the water is directed at us. The men, elevated at the top of the painting and leaning against a handrail, are the only fully-clothed figures and reflect the onlooker, confirming that the work is primarily intended to serve a male gaze. The oversized items of clothing discarded on the handrail act like an invitation for the onlooker to whip their clothes off and join in the fun.
Bathing scenes were primarily intended to illustrate scholarly writings on the effect of spas and springs. These sorts of baths were particularly popular with the people of Basel at the time, especially as some – such as Bad Maulburg in nearby Wiesental – were also accessible to poorer people. However, sophisticated resorts, such as Baden, Pfäfers and Leuk remained the preserve of the wealthier classes. Bock provides some obvious clues about this: for example, while the women in the baths are all completely naked, almost all have kept their heavy gold necklaces on.
The cover of the 1559 treatise Von heilsamen Bädern on the healing effects of spas by Basel physician Jakob Huggel depicts a scene, which, although more restrained than Bock’s, contains an initial discreet allusion to the desired curative effect – namely increased fertility – through the jug conspicuously placed in the centre and the cupid on top of the fountain. Other images in the book are less modest and show bathers engaging in unabashed petting.
![Jakob Huggel’s ‘Von heilsamen Bädern des Teutsche[n]lands’ with its chaste cover...](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/huggel-titelbild.webp)
The notion of bodily humors led to people spending up to eight hours in spas, which may seem unusual today. This explains why Hans Bock arranges his bathers in the water around a table, as if it were a flooded salon. To counter the boredom, they spend the time reading, making music, drinking wine and eating – and with all manner of canoodling.
He also worked as a scientific illustrator, notably for the medical professor Felix Platter. He was commissioned by the famous legal scholar from Basel, Basilius Amerbach (1533–1591) to draw the systematic excavations of the Roman ruins in Augst (Kaiseraugst), that had just begun at the time. Amerbach was also one of Bock’s most important patrons and had his portrait painted by him.
Another clue emerges if we compare The Baths at Leuk with Hans Bock’s Dance around the Statue of Venus, as done by Basel historian Susanna Burghartz. She believes the two paintings, which were both produced after 1590, belong together. What we initially notice when making this comparison is that in The Baths at Leuk, Bock replicates a figure from his Dance around the Statue of Venus: the woman sitting down in the front right, who is not depicted as pregnant in Venus.
Even three hundred years later, in 1872, when it was acquired for the Basel Kunstmuseum, Bock’s genre scene still managed to incite strong reactions from the people of Basel. The wealth of subtle erotic allusions in The Baths at Leuk meant the painting initially remained in the conservator’s office. That also shows how social standards have changed with regard to the depiction of nakedness and sexuality – an interesting perspective to consider in current societal debates.
