Bosch, Hieronymus [Dutch, 1450-1516]

Hieronymous Bosch: Garden of Earthly Delights (Detail): Bird-Headed Monster - delightd.jpg
Hieronymous Bosch: Death and the Miser, 1490 [Washington] - miser.jpg
Hieronymous Bosch: Last Judgement (Central Panel) - judge_c.jpg
Hieronymous Bosch: The Wayfarer [Rotterdam] - wayfarer.jpg
Hieronymous Bosch: Temptation of St Anthony (Detail from Central Panel) - tempt_d.jpg

BOSCH, Hieronymous
Garden of Earthly Delights (Detail): Bird-Headed Monster
c. 1500
Oil on panel
Central panel, 220 x 195 cm; wings, 220 x 97 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

BOSCH, HIERONYMOUS
Paradise and Hell
c. 1510
Left and right panels of a triptych: oil on wood
Each panel 135 x 45 cm (53 1/4 x 17 3/4 in.)
Prado, Madrid

"Thus it came about that the greatest Netherlandish artist of the
period is not found among the adherents of the New Style but among
those who, like Grunewald in Germany, refused to be drawn into the
modern movement from the South. In the Dutch town of
's Hertogenbosch there lived such a painter, who was called
Hieronymous Bosch. Very little is known about him. We do not
know how old he was when he died in 1516, but he must have
been active for a considerable time since he became an independent
master in 1486. Like Grunewald, Bosch showed that the traditions
and achievements of painting which had been developed to represent
reality most convincingly could be turned round, as it were, to give
us an equally plausible picture of things no human eye had seen. He
became famous for his terrifying representations of the powers of evil.
Perhaps it is no accident that the gloomy King Philip II of Spain, later
in the century, had a special predilection for this artist, who was so
much concerned with man's wickedness. Figures 22~30 show two
wings from one of Bosch's triptychs he bought and which is therefore
still in Spain. On the left we watch evil invading the world. The creation
of Eve is followed by the temptation of Adam and both are driven out
of Paradise, while high above in the sky we see the fall of the rebellious
angels, who are hurled from heaven as a swarm of repulsive insects. On the
other wing we are shown a vision of hell. There we see horror piled upon
horror, fires and torments and all manner of fearful demons, half animal,
half human or half machine, who plague and punish the poor sinful souls
for all eternity. For the first and perhaps for the only time, an artist had
succeeded in giving concrete and tangible shape to the fears that had
haunted the minds of man in the Middle Ages. It was an achievement
which was perhaps only possible at this very moment, when the old ideas
were still vigorous and yet the modern spirit had provided the artist with
methods of representing what he saw. Perhaps Hieronymus Bosch could
have written on one of his paintings of hell what Jan van Eyck wrote on
his peaceful scene of the Arnolfinis' betrothal: 'I was there'.

BOSCH, Hieronymous
Death and the Miser
c. 1490
Oil on wood
36 5/8 x 12 1/8 in. (93 x 31 cm)
National Gallery of Art, Washington

BOSCH, Hieronymous
Last Judgement
(central panel)
Oil on panel              
Akademie der bildenden Kunste

BOSCH, Hieronymous
The Wayfarer
n.d.
Oil on panel
diameter 71.5 cm
Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam

BOSCH, Hieronymous
Temptation of St Anthony: Detail from Central Panel
(triptych)
Oil on panel              
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon 

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