Bosch, Hieronymus (1450–1516)

A Dutch painter known for his densely crowded canvases and striking imagery that reflects an intensely religious outlook and a fascination with sin, weakness, and corruption. Born as Jeroen van Aeken, the son of Anthonius van Aeken, he took the surname Bosch from the town of 's-Hertogenbosch, the place of his birth. The son and brother of skilled painters, he lived his entire life in this town, which then belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy. His first commission, undertaken with his father and two brothers, was an altarpiece, offered by the Brotherhood of Our Lady to the local cathedral.

The Flemish school of painting to which Bosch belonged was known for realistic depictions of everyday life; it included such masters as Pieter Brueghel, who was a devoted student of Bosch paintings. Few details are known about the private life of Bosch, other than that he was a member of the strictly orthodox Brotherhood of Our Lady, a group that venerated the Virgin Mary. He lived at a time of change, when the familiar religious mores and artistic styles of the Middle Ages were being transformed into the humanism and experimentation of the Renaissance. His work can be seen as a morbidly pessimistic view of this changing world and a prediction that the new, irreligious age was condemning Christian believers to hell.

Bosch's fame earned him many commissions from nobility and royalty. His successful workshop produced paintings, altarpieces, triptychs (three-paneled pictures), and smaller works undertaken for local art patrons. For the Cathedral of St. Johns, in his hometown, he was awarded many commissions to design altarpieces, garments, and stained glass, none of which have survived to modern times. His paintings are Christian allegories, many on the theme of temptation and damnation, with the most famous example being The Garden of Earthly Delights. This vivid ensemble of strange forms, monsters, devils, mythological figures, and grotesques includes more than one thousand figures. Its three panels are the Garden of Eden on the left, Hell on the right, and in the center The Garden of Earthly Delights, which shows an allegorical scene of man's temptation and downfall. The Garden of Earthly Delights and other paintings by Bosch hold up an unpleasant mirror to the vices and foolishness of humanity. Their intent is to shock with the wickedness revealed in human and animal forms, and inspire repentance on the part of the viewer. The Temptation of St. Anthony is one of his most famous works. The Vision of Tondalys is a painting of dreamlike images, in which the legs of a man sprout roots and people fly through the air. The Ship of Fools shows a group of people voyaging on a small boat, wasting their lives in insignificant and futile pursuits as the ship drifts far from their harbor. Death and the Miser depicts the last moments of a greedy man who has hoarded his wealth and who now must face death, personified as an eerie phantom that is coming through his door. Modern art historians see Bosch as an important precursor to the surrealist imagery popular in the early twentieth century. His paintings were popular among wealthy and noble patrons in the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, and he has had many imitators up to the present day.

See Also: Brueghel family