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Born: 1450
Died: 1516
Summary of Hieronymus Bosch
Bosch is mostly instantly identified with paintings that have a frighteningly vivid, dream-like aspect. He is perhaps the most brilliantly creative and ethically complex of all northern European religious artists. Despite the fact that only about 25 original pieces survive, his paintings’ horrific imagery is instantly identifiable as “Boschian” and has become a hallmark of the grotesque genre.
While his status as an iconoclast is undeniable, some historians believe he was a deeply conservative figure who, rather than being a disturbed mind, was equally capable of being subtle, complementing his grotesque images with fine decorative and devotional pieces that embodied his strongly held Christian principles.
Bosch was one of the first artists to use the triptych as a narrative technique to convey abstract themes in his work. Critics and historians have found a variety of contemporary themes in his stories – ecological, social, and political – but his most well-known works, such as The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1510), are dense with religious symbolism and the overarching theme of mankind’s timeless moral struggle between imprudence and virtue.
Many refer to him as the “creator of devils” and a purveyor of visual folly and sarcasm, and scholars and historians have struggled to decipher his works. In reality, Bosch, who was known in Spain as “El Bosco” and was respected long before the nineteenth-century revival of interest in his work, is sometimes referred to as the “first Surrealist” and was dubbed the “discoverer of the unconscious” by the famed psychiatrist Carl Jung.
Unlike other Netherlandish painters like Jan van Eyck, who used a clean and precise style, Bosch’s brushwork is lively and diverse. Meanwhile, his keen eye for detail may be ascribed to his early work as a draughtsman, which saw him become one of the first Netherlandish painters to exhibit drawings as freestanding (rather than preparatory) works.
Some historians believe that the idea for the bizarre, demonic monsters that threaten his writings may be found in religious documents from the late mediaeval and Renaissance periods. Indeed, the Spanish monk José de Sigüenza argued in 1605 that his paintings were like “books of great wisdom and artistic value,” and that if there were “any absurdities here, they are ours, not his, they are a painted satire on mankind’s sins and ravings,” they were “a painted satire on mankind’s sins and ravings.”
Childhood
Jheronimus Anthonissen van Aken was the son of Antonius van Aken and his wife, Aleid van der Mynnem, and was born somewhere between 1450 and 1456 (his exact date of birth is unknown but has been approximated based on a self-portrait dated about 1508). He was born into a privileged family in the affluent, culturally and intellectually rich town of s-Hertogenbosch, in the Duchy of Brabant, located in the Netherlands’ lowlands.
His grandfather, Johannes Thomaszoon van Aken, was one of the most prominent painters in early fifteenth-century s-Hertogenbosch and fathered a “painter dynasty of five children” four of whom went on to become painters, according to art historian Stefan Fischer (including Antonius).
Apart from the fact that 4,000 homes in s-Hertogenbosch were destroyed by a devastating fire in 1463, nothing else is known about Bosch’s early years. “It is believed that the artist witnessed this disaster, which was perhaps one of the most devastating events of his early life,” said art historian Claire Selvin. It’s conceivable that the tragic event affected Bosch’s subsequent works, which contain scenes with fires burning in the backdrop.”
Early Life
Jheronimus eventually changed his name to Bosch (called “Boss” in Dutch) in honour of his hometown, which was known locally as Den Bosch (the forest). Because he left no notes, letters, books, or other similar artefacts, nothing is known about his training. However, Hieronymus is recorded as a member of his father’s workshop in s-Hertogenbosch municipal records dating from 1475, and it is thought (very plausibly) that his father and maybe one of his uncles taught him to paint. This information, on the other hand, does not bring us any closer to comprehending the wellspring of Bosch’s extraordinary imagination.
Between 1480 and 1481, Bosch married Aleid van der Mervenne, the daughter of a trader. Aleid, who was a few years older than him, was the heir of a large estate, which included a family home in the nearby town of Oirschot, where the couple resided. Bosch is said to have never travelled or wandered far from his hometown. “Bosch benefited from the funds, land, and status that came with the union, and he established his own workshop soon after the couple married,” according to Salvin (via Fischer).
At this stage in his life, Bosch had established himself as an artist in his own right, and he was in a position to form significant relationships with powerful royal sponsors.” Indeed, a mention of his name and occupation comes in the town records of s-Hertogenbosch in 1486, where he is listed as Insignis Pictor (Distinguished Painter).
Because s-Hertogenbosch was governed by the Roman Empire, it’s possible that Bosch was well-versed in the Renaissance art that influenced the Flemish artists. Indeed, in 1488, when he was approximately 40 years old, Bosch joined the Brotherhood of Our Lady, an archly orthodox Catholic organisation comprised of 40 of’s-most Hertogenbosch’s powerful people and 7,000 “outer members” spread around Europe. The Brotherhood was devoted to the Virgin and was well-known across Catholic Europe (Bosch’s father having formerly served as its artistic director).
Some of the artist’s early religious commissions are said to have come from the Brotherhood, however, it is unknown if any of these pieces have survived.
“While it remains unknown where it was originally displayed, the painting, like many other devotional images of the period, was created to ensure salvation for the soul of the donor depicted kneeling at the foot of the cross,” Fischer writes about one of his earliest known works, Crucifixion with Saints and Donor (c. 1485-90).
Crucifixion with Saints and Donor is an anomaly in a corpus of work that favours unusual, dizzying, and unsettling compositions, and Bosch would subsequently project his distinctive style onto a variety of religious topics.”
However, as Tim Smith-Laing, an art critic, points out, “Despite the uniqueness of his work, there is no indication that Bosch was an outsider in any way. While some generously speculative research in the 1940s attempted to link him to a heretical sex cult known as the Adamites, and the 1960s zeitgeist had him hallucinating on ergotic wheat, the mainstream academic opinion offers a much tamer picture, nothing suggests that Bosch was anything other than a prominent, prosperous citizen, an orthodox Catholic, and a devotional painter in high demand a century ago “..
Mid Life
While other northern European painters were also focused on making biblical narratives, Bosch was interpreting the same subject matter in such a unique way that it clashed with the Flemish style’s harmony and dominance. He transformed religious tales into amazing new fantasy realms rich with absurdity and ecclesiastical symbolism by filtering them through his mind. Bosch’s signature style – incorporating twisted and distorted figure forms, intense colours, enormous and threatening vegetation, and numerous demons and reptiles – begins to emerge via a sequence of paintings of saints during his extremely loosely defined “middle period”
But it is widely said that his Triptych of the Adoration of the Magi (1494) was his first real masterpiece. The piece, which depicts the Mass of Saint Gregory, was commissioned by Peeter Scheyfve and Agneese de Gramme of Antwerp and effectively established the artist’s fame, even though it did not mesh well with Bosch’s “brand recognition” in subsequent years. Smith-Laing pointed out that “Bosch was already one of the most well-known painters of his period when he died in 1516, and he quickly became one of the most copied and reproduced. By the 1530s, an entire school of artists in Antwerp had developed dedicated to just that, and it was with them that Bosch’s prophetic picture began to crystallise “.
As the fifteenth century drew to a close, a powerful German astrologer predicted that the “end of the world” brought on by catastrophic floods, would occur on February 25, 1524. With Albrecht Dürer’s famous watercolour recording a dream in which he witnessed the final apocalypse (as water crashing down from the heavens onto earth) and Bosch’s The Last Judgement, which covered the same subject but with an image of Hell populated with fantastical devils, evil spirits, metamorphized creatures, and erotic symphonies, the idea of the Last Judgement gained traction in society.
Because none of Bosch’s works includes dates, it’s impossible to say when he completed The Last Judgement (though it is estimated that it was completed between 1482-1505). “Bosch started employing at least one assistant by 1499 and that, he was able to hire an assistant at all was a sign that he achieved success,” Selvin says. Indeed, the hand of an assistant has been linked to his The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things (c. 1500), another painting on the topic of the Last Judgement and painted on a table for a sinner to contemplate on before entering the confessional box.
Around this time, Bosch created The Temptation of Saint Anthony (C. 1500), a triptych that praises St. Anthony’s steadfastness of faith in the face of strong pressure by demonic forces (he would return to the storey St. Anthony throughout his later career). Bosch’s vision had grown more gloriously broad by this time. His figures became leaner, his colours got more subdued, and the fantastical worlds he depicted contrasted catastrophic scenarios with biblical settings of almost perfect purity.
Late Life
The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1510) is without a doubt Bosch’s most famous and iconic work (indeed, many know his name only through this work). With his earthly paradise, which included the creation and temptation of woman brilliantly contrasted with terribly disturbing pictures of the world of dissipation and pleasure-seeking, his style had reached full maturity.
The painting’s dreamlike/nightmarish aspect has become legendary, and it includes a plethora of small nude human beings, deformed animals, and frightening monsters said to have emerged from the artist’s limitless imagination. While works like The Garden of Earthly Delights have “an extraordinarily vivid imaginative power and the subjects are heavily embroidered with subsidiary narratives and symbols, the basic themes are sometimes quite simple and much of the imagery can be explained in terms of popular culture of Bosch’s age, notably proverbs and devotions,” according to The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists, “the basic themes are sometimes quite simple and much of the imagery can be explained in terms of the popular culture of Bosch’s age, notably proverbs
Apart from his obsession with the evil and beauty of God’s cosmos, Bosch displays a mastery of compositional harmony and a meticulous attention to detail that rivals that of Renaissance artists. Indeed, the eminent art historian E. H. Gombrich said in The Garden of Earthly Delights: “For the first and maybe only time in history, an artist had succeeded in giving real and visible form to the anxieties that had plagued man’s thoughts during the Middle Ages. It was a feat that was maybe only feasible at this precise period, when ancient concepts were still alive and the Renaissance spirit had supplied the artist with ways for expressing what he saw “.
Historians have theorised that the figure of the “Tree Man” in The Garden of Earthly Delights’ Hell panel was made in the artist’s likeness, but the artist’s 1508 self-portrait sketch is the sole verified self-portrait. It’s believed to have been drawn eight years before his death, and it’s possible that Bosch “exaggerated” his age on purpose. In any event, the picture appears to foreshadow Bosch’s need to put a face to his legacy, maybe in light of the fact that he was nearing the end of his life.
Bosch died in 1516, according to the Brotherhood of Our Lady, and a funeral ceremony was performed on August 9th in the Church of Saint John in s-Hertogenbosch.
Despite his indisputable importance in art history, Bosch’s output is limited to only about 25 paintings and eight sketches. One explanation for this meagre return is that during the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, many books deemed sinful were burned.
Bosch’s art was collected in numerous nations around Europe during his lifetime, and he was highly admired and emulated by pupils and followers, not least Pieter Bruegel the Elder, often known as the “Second Hieronymus” who was influenced by Bosch’s style of painting landscapes. Although interest in his work waned (save in Spain), he resurfaced in the modern period, influencing the Surrealist movement and artists such as Max Ernst, René Magritte, and, most notably, Salvador Dal, who believed that Bosch was the first modern artist.
Famous Art by Hieronymus Bosch
The Adoration of the Magi
1494
The narrative of the Three Kings’ worship of the Christ Child in Bosch’s triptych offers an early glimpse of the artist’s dazzlingly unique and ethically complex vision (or Magi). As the Magi arrive with the regal majesty befitting such a humbling event, the bare Christ infant rests atop the Virgin’s lap. The image of Mary with Jesus on her lap is painted “in a manner that recalls the works of Jan van Eyck” according to art historian Pilar Silva, while Bosch “demonstrates his painting skills in the opulence of the Magi’s robes and offerings – in the sumptuous of the materials and his masterly application of highlights in brushstrokes so fine that they appear to be drawn”
The Garden of Earthly Delights
1490-1510
The most renowned work by Bosch was painted to mark the wedding of Count Henry II of Nassau’s daughter in Brussels. The triptych was meant to depict the “benefits and hazards” of marriage through a biblical parable: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden on the left, a hedonistic “paradise” in the middle panel, and a flaming Hell on the right for sinners and the unrepentant. On the outside of the case, Bosch depicts the formation of the world in grisaille, especially the third day of creation when the earthly paradise was established (grey tones).
The Haywain Triptych
1512-1515
The triptych’s outer doors depict a peddler on the “Pilgrimage of Life” and are painted in full colour rather than the grisaille manner used on Bosch’s earlier outer panels. Ingrid D. Rowland, an art critic, writes of the outside panels, “Most academics see the wayfarer as an ordinary person trying to make his way through life despite challenges to his bodily and spiritual well-being. Only his unwavering faith and care will sustain him on this perilous path “.. Indeed, the subject of pilgrimage, as well as the possible dangers and pitfalls of life’s journey, serves as a foreshadowing for the tale of sin’s repercussions, which will be told over the three inner panels.
BULLET POINTED (SUMMARISED)
Best for Students and a Huge Time Saver
- Bosch is mostly instantly identified with paintings that have a frighteningly vivid, dream-like aspect.
- He is perhaps the most brilliantly creative and ethically complex of all northern European religious artists.
- Despite the fact that only about 25 original pieces survive, his paintings’ horrific imagery is instantly identifiable as “Boschian” and has become a hallmark of the grotesque genre.
- While his status as an iconoclast is undeniable, some historians believe he was a deeply conservative figure who, rather than being a disturbed mind, was equally capable of being subtle, complementing his grotesque images with fine decorative and devotional pieces that embodied his strongly held Christian principles.
- Bosch was one of the first artists to use the triptych as a narrative technique to convey abstract themes in his work.
- Critics and historians have found a variety of contemporary themes in his stories – ecological, social, and political – but his most well-known works, such as The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1510), are dense with religious symbolism and the overarching theme of mankind’s timeless moral struggle between imprudence and virtue.
- Many refer to him as the “creator of devils” and a purveyor of visual folly and sarcasm, and scholars and historians have struggled to decipher his works.
- In reality, Bosch, who was known in Spain as “El Bosco” and was respected long before the nineteenth-century revival of interest in his work, is sometimes referred to as the “first Surrealist” and was dubbed the “discoverer of the unconscious” by the famed psychiatrist Carl Jung.
- Unlike other Netherlandish painters like Jan van Eyck, who used a clean and precise style, Bosch’s brushwork is lively and diverse.
- Meanwhile, his keen eye for detail may be ascribed to his early work as a draughtsman, which saw him become one of the first Netherlandish painters to exhibit drawings as freestanding (rather than preparatory) works.
Information Citations
En.wikipedia.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/.
