Time for Bosch

I love how you all waited for me to come back! ;)

This is what I wrote yesterday:

I am not a happy girl right now. I got turned down for something I think I'd enjoy, which
you can read about here. It will open in a new window.

[Edit: This morning I called for a CV analysis. A few minor changes to make, but if I really want help I'd have to pay them to write it professionally for me. ]

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I've been promising Steli I'd do a post on Hieronymus Bosch, the Flemish Gothic surrealist. It started because I said something about Herr Bosch being the Dali of the middle ages, somewhere on his blog.

Then I think it was a sign that last night I stayed up till 3am watching the documentary on Bosch that I had missed twice in as many weeks.

So here it is. And bye bye Google.

Bosch's given name was Jeroen van Aken, meaning the family originated in Aachen. The van Akens were all successful painters with a thriving workshop in 's-Hertogenbosch (in southern Holland today). He was born in about 1450 and died in 1516, and is thought to be the weirdest artist in the history of European art.
When he became a successful and respected painter, he took the name of Bosch, to identify where he lived.

He married the daughter of a rich burgher (I think?) but whoever she was, moved him from the sphere of craftsmen into the realm of high society. He lived in a great townhouse in the best square in 's Hertogenbosch.

Bosch did what had never been done before by moving marginalia into the centre of the picture. In reference to illuminated manuscripts, marginalia are the grotesque images and scenes in the margins of - in this instance - prayer books. Almost as if church goers were allowed to be distracted in the middle of devotions. Another source were the grotesque figures carved into the choir and painted on the columns - and there are a lot of these at the cathedral in 's Hertogenbosch.

(I can't find a decent pic of any.)
He painted what no human eye had seen before; he turned reality on its head. In his obsession with demons, machines, giant insects and unnatural human-monster hybrids, he materialised the fears and superstitions of medieval society. Bizarre.
He celebrated human weakness, frailty, sinfulness, wickedness. He stressed punishment and damnation. Not for him any nobility or redemption.

Some say his obsession with hell originated in the devastating fire which destroyed part of his hometown, and which he witnessed as an impressionable boy.

One of his most avid collectors was Philip II of Spain, who kept Bosch's works closest to him, of all his collection. They are still to be found in the Quirinal, and also a rich collection is housed in the Prado in Madrid.

Bosch was a contemporary of Leonardo, and one could not find two men at more polar opposites of artistic ideology.
(Ooh did you like my phrase?)

Yet, as surreal as his work seems, it has a sort of weird reality and never really broke the rules of nature as Dali's visions did.

Two of his most famous works are today in the Quirinal and the Prado:

A giant detailed full-screen treat:
The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych
consisting of three panels: Garden of Eden (l), The World Before the Flood (c), Hell (r).

It was a challenge choosing which odd detail to show you, but here is one from the Hell panel:

The Tree Man is a sort of Adam. He looks directly across the central panel and his gaze connects with Eve's in the Garden of Eden.


The odd tabletop Seven Deadly Sins. The inscription in the "pupil of the eye" reads: Cave cave deus vedit (Beware beware God sees)



(I can't read the other inscriptions!)