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Dear Friends,
This new thread is dedicated to my Adland friend Kathleen
VanBeekom, who kindly suggested me to reopen this forum. Not
only that, she also suggested to feature Hieronymus Bosch, one
of the greatest painters of all times. It was a great choice
indeed, and a challenging one at that.
In effect, I had long wanted to feature Bosch (ca. 1450-1516),
also known as El Bosco, in this forum; he was the first
and foremost painter of the Northern Renaissance period, and one
of my best favorites ever. But sheer lack of time and the
difficulty in selecting a particular painting from his vast
catalog of precious masterworks – other than his fabulous
triptych The Garden of Heavenly Delights, featured
here – kept me
from it. In the end, I have ignored the latter consideration and
opted for featuring his Garden anyway.
So this actually is a very special occasion for me, as after my
very long “vacation” I am at last able to feature this legendary
master.
In a way, this is a continuation of the Northern Renaissance
presentation whose most characteristic figure, Albrecht Dürer,
the German painter and engraver, has already been featured at
this forum. But here ends all resemblance between these two
great artists, as Flemish Bosch emerges unique in the history of
painting with his eerie, enigmatic art – a strong and absolutely
original art which owes nothing to any other artist,
characterized by apocalyptic scenes of Heaven and Hell (or the
Golden and Iron Ages of the Classical Tradition?) in such
masterworks as
The Last Judgement’s
left wing,
central panel, and
right wing (in Vienna), and in his other version of it (see
HERE);
The Hay Wain’s
central panel and its
left and
right wings (Museo del Prado);
Paradise and Hell’s left and right wings (the only
extant panels of a probable tryptich); and of course all three
panels of
The Garden of Earthly Delights,
including its back painting (known as
God creating the Earth) when closed
(see below).
By large the most famous and celebrated of his master pieces,
Bosch's Garden is indeed the epitome of his whole
production. I will not attempt to dig into its meaning, since
over the last centuries, tons of ink and paper have been spent
to that end. But rather than just apocalyptic scenes of Heaven
and Hell, on the left and right wings I can perceive echoes of
the Golden and Iron ages of the Classical tradition, or – what
is the same – the idyllic Past and dreadful Future of mankind;
while on the long and chaotic Present between those ages,
fantastically depicted by Bosch on the central panel, one may
hear resonances of the Silver and Bronze ages of the same
tradition. I am talking of a prophetic vision such as the
biblical prophets Elias, Ezekiel and Daniel might have; and
remember that Bosch was “talking” of a present that is our past,
and of a future that is our present. As to the Earth featured
on the outer wings, so
evocative of the post-Deluge account,
it only adds a key element to a conception of history ruled by
the notion of cyclic ages; for the rest, it is almost identical to
certain
archetypical images of the most diverse origin – notably in the
Buddhist and Celtic iconographies, where such notion was ever
present.
Other great favorites by Bosch include
The Ship of Fools,
St. John on Patmos,
The Marriage at Cana (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen,
Rotterdam),
The Seven Deadly Sins (Prado, Madrid),
Crucifixion (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts,
Brussels),
The Cure of Folly,
Death and the Miser (National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C.),
St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness,
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (Museu Nacional de Arte
Antiga, Lisbon),
The Adoration of the Magi (Prado), and
Christ Carrying the Cross (Museum voor Schone Kunsten,
Ghent). NOTE: Bosch’s graphic works are not considered in this
thread.
GREAT MASTERS OF
PAINTING
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The
Garden of Earthly Delights
(1a)
(Click
HERE for the enlarged left wing)
(Click
HERE for the enlarged central panel)
(Click
HERE for the enlarged right wing)
(Click on both the above and below images to enlarge)
The outer wings (“God
creating the Earth”)
(1b)
by
Hieronymus Bosch
born circa 2 October
1453, 's
Hertogenbosch
(modern Netherlands)
died circa August 9, 1516, 's Hertogenbosch
Profile
(2)
Hieronymus Bosch,
born Jeroen Anthoniszoon van Aken, was an Early
Netherlandish painter of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The artist's work is well-known for the use of fantastic imagery
to illustrate moral and religious concepts and narratives.
Hieronymus Bosch is known for his enigmatic panels illustrating
complex religious subjects with fantastic, often demonic
imagery.
The documents about Bosch indicate that he followed the
predictable life of a prominent Roman Catholic artist in 's
Hertogenbosch, a provincial but prosperous town located in the
modern Netherlands close to the Belgian border. His father and
grandfather were both painters in the same town before him, and
apparently Bosch lived all his life there. He married a local
woman and joined the lay organization of the Confraternity of
Notre Dame. Bosch was responsible for designing a stained-glass
window, among several other works, for the town church. His art
was well known outside 's Hertogenbosch during his lifetime.
References to astrology, folklore, witchcraft, and alchemy, in
addition to the theme of the Antichrist and episodes from the
lives of exemplary saints, are all woven together by Bosch into
a labyrinth of late medieval Christian iconography. Scholars
differ in their interpretation of Bosch's art, but most agree
that his pictures show a preoccupation with the human propensity
for sin in defiance of God, as well as with God's eternal
damnation of lost souls in hell as a fateful consequence of
human folly.
Stylistically, Bosch worked in a manner called alla prima, a
method of applying paint freely on a preliminary ground of
brownish paint. He was familiar with Dutch manuscript paintings
and with foreign prints, and many of his images can be traced to
these sources.
Dated works by Bosch do not exist and, of those panels that bear
his signature, many might have been by followers. His pictures
were widely imitated well into the later 16th century. During
the 1550s, a veritable Boschian revival occurred in Antwerp that
involved artists such as Pieter Huys and even Pieter Bruegel the
Elder, who openly made variations of his paintings. Descriptions
of some of his works were written by 16th-century Spanish
nobleman Don Felipe Guevara. Among other sources, these have
aided modern art historians in determining Bosch's authentic
works.
Technical data
(3)
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Oil on panel, central panel: 220 x 195 cm,
wings: 220 x 97 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
British Museum, London
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