Hieronymus Bosch

Hieronymus Bosch
(/ˌhaɪ.əˈrɒnɪməs ˈbɒʃ/;[1] Dutch: [ɦijeː
ˈroːnimɵz ˈbɔs] (  listen);[2] born Jheronimus
van Aken[3] [jeːˈroːnimɵs fɑn ˈaːkə(n)];[4] c.
1450 – 9 August 1516) was a
Dutch/Netherlandish draughtsman and
painter from Brabant. He is widely
considered one of the most notable
representatives of Early Netherlandish
painting school. His work is known for its
fantastic imagery, detailed landscapes,
and illustrations of religious concepts and
narratives.[5] Within his lifetime his work
was collected in the Netherlands, Austria,
and Spain, and widely copied, especially
his macabre and nightmarish depictions of
hell.
 Hieronymus Bosch

Portrait of Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1550,

(attr. Jacques Le Boucq)

Native name Jheronimus Bosch

Born Jheronimus van Aken

c. 1450
's-Hertogenbosch, Duchy of
Brabant, Burgundian Netherlands
(modern-day Netherlands)

Died Buried on 9 August 1516

's-Hertogenbosch, Duchy of
 Brabant, Habsburg Netherlands

Nationality Dutch

Known for Painting

Notable work The Garden of Earthly Delights

The Temptation of St. Anthony

Movement Early Netherlandish Renaissance

Little is known of Bosch's life, though there

are some records. He spent most of it in
the town of 's-Hertogenbosch, where he
was born in his grandfather's house. The
roots of his forefathers are in Nijmegen
and Aachen (which is visible in his
surname: Van Aken). His pessimistic and
fantastical style cast a wide influence on
northern art of the 16th century, with Pieter
Bruegel the Elder being his best-known
follower. His paintings have been difficult
to translate from a modern point of view;
attempts to associate instances of
modern sexual imagery with fringe sects
or the occult have largely failed. Today he
is seen as a hugely individualistic painter
with deep insight into humanity's desires
and deepest fears. Attribution has been
especially difficult; today only about 25
paintings are confidently given to his
hand[6] along with 8 drawings.
Approximately another half dozen
paintings are confidently attributed to his
workshop. His most acclaimed works
consist of a few triptych altarpieces, the
most outstanding of which is The Garden
of Earthly Delights.

Life
Hieronymus Bosch was born Jheronimus
(or Joen,[7] respectively the Latin and
Middle Dutch form of the name "Jerome")
van Aken (meaning "from Aachen"). He
signed a number of his paintings as
Jheronimus Bosch.[8] The name derives
from his birthplace, 's-Hertogenbosch,
which is commonly called "Den Bosch"
('the forest').

Little is known of Bosch's life or training.

He left behind no letters or diaries, and
what has been identified has been taken
from brief references to him in the
municipal records of 's-Hertogenbosch,
and in the account books of the local order
of the Illustrious Brotherhood of Our
Blessed Lady. Nothing is known of his
personality or his thoughts on the meaning
of his art. Bosch's date of birth has not
been determined with certainty. It is
estimated at c. 1450 on the basis of a
hand drawn portrait (which may be a self-
portrait) made shortly before his death in
1516. The drawing shows the artist at an
advanced age, probably in his late
sixties.[9]
Bosch was born and lived all his life in and
near 's-Hertogenbosch, a city in the Duchy
of Brabant. His grandfather, Jan van Aken
(died 1454), was a painter and is first
mentioned in the records in 1430. It is
known that Jan had five sons, four of
whom were also painters. Bosch's father,
Anthonius van Aken (died c. 1478), acted
as artistic adviser to the Illustrious
Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady.[10] It is
generally assumed that either Bosch's
father or one of his uncles taught the artist
to paint, but none of their works survive.[11]
Bosch first appears in the municipal record
on 5 April 1474, when he is named along
with two brothers and a sister.
The Crucifixion of St Julia is attributed to Bosch's
middle period, c. 1497.

's-Hertogenbosch was a flourishing city in

15th-century Brabant, in the south of the
present-day Netherlands, at the time part
of the Burgundian Netherlands, and during
its lifetime passing through marriage to
the Habsburgs. In 1463, 4,000 houses in
the town were destroyed by a catastrophic
fire, which the then (approximately) 13-
year-old Bosch presumably witnessed. He
became a popular painter in his lifetime
and often received commissions from
abroad. In 1488 he joined the highly
respected Brotherhood of Our Lady, an
arch-conservative religious group of some
40 influential citizens of 's-Hertogenbosch,
and 7,000 'outer-members' from around
Europe.

Sometime between 1479 and 1481, Bosch

married Aleyt Goyaerts van den Meerveen,
who was a few years his senior. The
couple moved to the nearby town of
Oirschot, where his wife had inherited a
house and land from her wealthy family.[12]
An entry in the accounts of the
Brotherhood of Our Lady records Bosch's
death in 1516. A funeral mass served in
his memory was held in the church of
Saint John on 9 August of that year.[13]

Works

The Garden of Earthly Delights in the Museo del Prado

in Madrid, c. 1495–1505, attributed to Bosch.
Bosch produced at least sixteen triptychs,
of which eight are fully intact, and another
five in fragments.[14] Bosch's works are
generally organized into three periods of
his life dealing with the early works (c.
1470–1485), the middle period (c.1485–
1500), and the late period (c. 1500 until his
death). According to Stefan Fischer,
thirteen of Bosch's surviving paintings
were completed in the late period, with
seven surviving paintings attributed to his
middle period.[15] Bosch's early period is
studied in terms of his workshop activity
and possibly some of his drawings.
Indeed, he taught pupils in the workshop,
who were influenced by him. The recent
dendrochronological investigation of the
oak panels by the scientists at the Bosch
Research and Conservation Project[16] led
to a more precise dating of the majority of
Bosch's paintings.[17]

His most famous triptych is The Garden of

Earthly Delights (c. 1495–1505) whose
outer panels are intended to bracket the
main central panel between the Garden of
Eden depicted on the left panel and the
Last Judgment depicted on the right
panel. It is attributed by Fischer as a
transition painting rendered by Bosch from
between his middle period and his late
period. In the left hand panel God presents
Eve to Adam; innovatively God is given a
youthful appearance. The figures are set in
a landscape populated by exotic animals
and unusual semi-organic hut-shaped
forms. The central panel is a broad
panorama teeming with socially engaged
nude figures seemingly engaged in
innocent, self-absorbed joy, as well as
fantastical animals, oversized fruit and
hybrid stone formations.[18]

The right panel presents a hellscape; a

world in which humankind has succumbed
to the temptations of evil and is reaping
eternal damnation. Set at night, the panel
features cold colours, tortured figures and
frozen waterways. The nakedness of the
human figures has lost any eroticism
suggested in the central panel,[19] as large
explosions in the background throw light
through the city gate and spill onto the
water in the panel's midground.[20]

Bosch sometimes painted in a

comparatively sketchy manner, contrasting
with the traditional Flemish style of
painting in which the smooth surface—
achieved by the application of multiple
transparent glazes—conceals the
brushwork.
Bosch's paintings with their rough
surfaces, so called impasto painting,
differed from the tradition of the great
Netherlandish painters of the end of the
15th, and beginning of the 16th centuries,
who wished to hide the work done and so
suggest their paintings as more nearly
divine creations.[21]

Bosch did not date his paintings, but—

unusual for the time—he seems to have
signed several of them, although some
signatures purporting to be his are
certainly not. About 25 paintings remain
today that can be attributed to him. In the
late sixteenth century, Philip II of Spain
confiscated and acquired many of Bosch's
paintings, including some probably
commissioned and collected by Spaniards
active in Bosch's hometown; as a result,
the Prado Museum in Madrid now owns
The Adoration of the Magi, The Garden of
Earthly Delights, the tabletop painting of
The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last
Things and The Haywain Triptych.
The Last Judgment, c. 1500–05
The Hay Wain c. 1516
Reconstruction of the left inner wing of a
lost triptych by Bosch, consisting of the
Ship of Fools (top) and the Allegory of
Gluttony and Lust (bottom).
The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last
Things
 The right inner wing of a lost triptych by
Jheronimus Bosch, consisting of Death
and the Miser.

Painting materials
Hieronymus Bosch painted his works
mostly on oak panels using oil as a
medium. Bosch's palette was rather
limited and contained the usual pigments
of his time.[22] He mostly used azurite for
blue skies and distant landscapes, green
copper based glazes and paints consisting
of malachite or verdigris for foliage and
foreground landscapes and lead-tin-yellow,
ochres and red lake (carmine or madder
lake) for his figures.[23]

Interpretation
The Owl's Nest. Pen and bistre on paper. 140 × 196
mm. Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

In the 20th century, when changing artistic

tastes made artists like Bosch more
palatable to the European imagination, it
was sometimes argued that Bosch's art
was inspired by heretical points of view
(e.g., the ideas of the Cathars and putative
Adamites) as well as by obscure hermetic
practices. Again, since Erasmus had been
educated at one of the houses of the
Brethren of the Common Life in 's-
Hertogenbosch, and the town was
religiously progressive, some writers have
found it unsurprising that strong parallels
exist between the caustic writing of
Erasmus and the often bold painting of
Bosch. "Although the Brethren remained
loyal to the Pope, they still saw it as their
duty to denounce the abuses and
scandalous behavior of many priests: the
corruption which both Erasmus and Bosch
satirised in their work".[24]
Hell panel from The Garden of Earthly Delights. It is
alleged that Bosch self-portrait is in the upper center at
right under the "table".
Others, following a strain of Bosch-
interpretation datable already to the 16th
century, continued to think his work was
created merely to titillate and amuse,
much like the "grotteschi" of the Italian
Renaissance. While the art of the older
masters was based in the physical world
of everyday experience, Bosch confronts
his viewer with, in the words of the art
historian Walter Gibson, "a world of
dreams [and] nightmares in which forms
seem to flicker and change before our
eyes". In one of the first known accounts
of Bosch's paintings, in 1560 the Spaniard
Felipe de Guevara wrote that Bosch was
regarded merely as "the inventor of
monsters and chimeras". In the early
seventeenth century, the artist-biographer
Karel van Mander described Bosch's work
as comprising "wondrous and strange
fantasies"; however, he concluded that the
paintings are "often less pleasant than
gruesome to look at".[25]

In recent decades, scholars have come to

view Bosch's vision as less fantastic, and
accepted that his art reflects the orthodox
religious belief systems of his age.[26] His
depictions of sinful humanity and his
conceptions of Heaven and Hell are now
seen as consistent with those of late
medieval didactic literature and sermons.
Most writers attach a more profound
significance to his paintings than had
previously been supposed, and attempt to
interpret it in terms of a late medieval
morality. It is generally accepted that
Bosch's art was created to teach specific
moral and spiritual truths in the manner of
other Northern Renaissance figures, such
as the poet Robert Henryson, and that the
images rendered have precise and
premeditated significance. According to
Dirk Bax, Bosch's paintings often represent
visual translations of verbal metaphors
and puns drawn from both biblical and
folkloric sources.[27] However, the conflict
of interpretations that his works still elicit
raises profound questions about the
nature of "ambiguity" in art of his period.

Latterly art historians have added a further

dimension to the subject of ambiguity in
Bosch's work, emphasizing ironic
tendencies, for example in The Garden of
Earthly Delights, both in the central panel
(delights),[28] and the right panel (hell).[29]
They theorize that the irony offers the
option of detachment, both from the real
world and from the painted fantasy world,
thus appealing to both conservative and
progressive viewers.
A 2012 study[30] on Bosch's paintings
alleges that they actually conceal a strong
nationalist consciousness, censuring the
foreign imperial government of the
Burgundian Netherlands, especially
Maximilian Habsburg. By systematically
superimposing images and concepts, the
study asserts that Bosch also made his
expiatory self-punishment, for he was
accepting well-paid commissions from the
Habsburgs and their deputies, and
therefore betraying the memory of Charles
the Bold.[31]

Debates on attribution
Christ Before Pilate, ca. 1520, one of the paintings with
disputed attribution, in the Princeton University Art
Museum which would date from Bosch's Late period of
painting.

The exact number of Bosch's surviving

works has been a subject of considerable
debate. His signature can be seen on only
seven of his surviving paintings, and there
is uncertainty whether all the paintings
once ascribed to him were actually from
his hand. It is known that from the early
16th century onwards numerous copies
and variations of his paintings began to
circulate. In addition, his style was highly
influential, and was widely imitated by his
numerous followers.[32]

Over the years, scholars have attributed to

him fewer and fewer of the works once
thought to be his. This is partly a result of
technological advances such as infrared
reflectography, which enable researchers
to examine a painting's underdrawing.[33]
Art historians of the early and mid-20th
century, such as Tolnay[34] and Baldass,[35]
identified between 30 and 50 paintings
that they believed to be by Bosch's
hand,[36] while a later monograph by Gerd
Unverfehrt (1980) attributed only 25
paintings and 14 drawings to him.[36] In
early 2016, The Temptation of St. Anthony,
a small panel in the Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri,
long attributed to the workshop of
Hieronymus Bosch, was credited to the
painter himself after intensive forensic
study by the Bosch Research and
Conservation Project.[6][37][38] The BRCP
has also questioned whether two well-
known paintings traditionally accepted to
be by Bosch, The Seven Deadly Sins in the
Prado and Christ Carrying the Cross in the
Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, should
instead be credited to the artist's
workshop rather than to the painter's own
hand.[39]

See also
Early Netherlandish painting
List of paintings by Hieronymus Bosch
List of drawings by Hieronymus Bosch
Jhieronymus Bosch - Visions of genius
(exhibition)
Hieronymus Bosch, Touched by the Devil

Footnotes
1. "Bosch" . Random House Webster's
Unabridged Dictionary.
2. In isolation, Hieronymus is pronounced
[ɦijeːˈroːnimɵs].
3. Dijck (2000): pp. 43–44. His birth is
undocumented. However, the Dutch
historian G.C.M. van Dijck points out that
the vast majority of contemporary archival
entries state his name as being Jheronimus
van Aken. Variants on his name are
Jeronimus van Aken (Dijck (2000): pp. 173,
186), Jheronimus anthonissen van aken
(Marijnissen ([1987]): p. 12), Jeronimus Van
aeken (Marijnissen ([1987]): p. 13), Joen
(Dijck (2000): pp. 170–171, 174–177), and
Jeroen (Dijck (2000): pp. 170, 174).
4. In isolation, van is pronounced [vɑn].
5. Catherine B. Scallen, The Art of the
Northern Renaissance (Chantilly: The
Teaching Company, 2007) Lecture 26
6. Siegal, Nina (February 1, 2016).
"Hieronymus Bosch Credited With Work in
Kansas City Museum" . The New York
Times. Retrieved February 1, 2016.
7. Dijck (2000): pp. 43–44. A variant on his
Middle Dutch name is "Jeroen". Van Dijck
points out that in all contemporary sources
the name "Jeroen" is used twice, while the
name "Joen" is used nine times, making
"Joen" to be his probable Christian name.
8. Signed works by Bosch include The
Adoration of the Magi, Saint Christopher
Carrying the Christ Child, St. John the
Evangelist on Patmos, The Temptation of
Saint Anthony, The Hermit Saints Triptych,
and The Crucifixion of St Julia.
9. Gibson, 15–16
10. Gibson, 15, 17
11. Gibson, 19
12. Valery, Paul. "The Phase of Doubt, A
Critical Reflection".
13. Gibson, 18
14. Jacobs, 1010
15. Stefan Fischer. Bosch: The Complete
Works.
16. Bosch Research and Conservation
Project , 2016
17. Luuk Hoogstede, Ron Spronk, Matthijs
Ilsink, Robert G. Erdmann, Jos Koldeweij,
Rik Klein Gotink, Hieronymus Bosch, Painter
and Draughtsman: Technical Studies, Yale
University Press, 2016
18. Fraenger, 10
19. Belting, 38
20. Gibson, 92
21. 'Bosch and the Delights of Hell'
Archived 27 May 2014 at the Wayback
Machine.
22. Hoogstede et al. (2016)
23. Hieronymus Bosch: General Resources ,
ColourLex
24. The Secret Life of Paintings. Richard
Foster & Pamela Tudor-Craig ISBN 0-85115-
439-5
25. Gibson, 9
26. Bosing, Walter (1987). Hieronymus
Bosch. Taschen.
27. Bax, 1949.
28. Pokorny (2010), 23, 25, 31.
29. Boulboullé (2008), 68, 70–72, 75–76.
30. Oliveira, Paulo Martins, Jheronimus
Bosch, 2012, pp.27, 199–218. ISBN 978-1-
4791-6765-4.
31. Oliveira, Paulo Martins, Bosch, the surdo
canis, 2013 (on-line paper).
32. Gibson, 163
33. Finaldi, Gabriele/ Garrido, Carmen "El
trazo oculto. Dibujos subyacentes en
pinturas de los siglos XV y XVI" (Museo
Nacional del Prado, Madrid 2006)
34. Tolnay, Charles de "Hieronymus Bosch"
(Methuen & Co, London 1966)
35. Baldass, Ludwig v. "Hieronimus Bosch" (
Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1960)
36. Muller, Sheila D. (1997). Dutch Art: an
Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Pub. p. 47.
ISBN 0-8153-0065-4.
37. Russell, Anna (February 1, 2016).
"Kansas City Museum Painting Deemed an
Authentic Bosch" . The Wall Street Journal.
Retrieved February 1, 2016.
38. Hoedel, Cindy (February 1, 2016). "Rare
Painting by Dutch Master Hieronymous
Bosch Has Been in Storage at Nelson-
Atkins" . The Kansas City Star. Retrieved
February 1, 2016.
39. Neuendorf, Henri (November 2, 2015).
"Scientists Question Attribution of Two
Hieronymus Bosch Masterpieces" . Artnet.
Retrieved February 1, 2016.

References
Bax, Dirk. Ontcijfering van Jeroen Bosch.
Den Haag, 1949
Boulboullé, Guido. "Groteske Angst. Die
Höllenphantasien des Hieronymus
Bosch". In: Auffarth, Christoph, and
Kerth, Sonja (Eds): "Glaubensstreit und
Gelächter: Reformation und Lachkultur
im Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit",
LIT Verlag Berlin, 2008. 55–78.
Fischer, Stefan. "Hieronymus Bosch. The
Complete Works", Cologne 2013.
Fraenger, Wilhelm. "Hieronymus Bosch"
(Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1975)
"Le royaume millénaire de Jérôme
Bosch" (French transl. by Roger
 Lewinter, Paris 1993)
Gibson, Walter. Hieronymus Bosch. New
York: Thames and Hudson, 1973.
ISBN 0-500-20134-X
Jacobs, Lynn. "The Triptychs of
Hieronymus Bosch". The Sixteenth
Century Journal, Volume 31, No. 4, 2000.
1009–1041
Koldeweij, Jos & Vermet, Bernard & van
Kooij, Barbera. Hieronymus Bosch. New
Insights Into His Life and Work, NAi
Publishers, Rotterdam 2001. ISBN 90-
5662-214-5
Marijnissen, Roger. "Hiëronymus Bosch.
Het volledige oeuvre". Haarlem:
Gottmer/Brecht, 1987. ISBN 90-230-
0651-8
Pokorny, Erwin. "Hieronymus Bosch und
das Paradies der Wollust". In:
"Frühneuzeit-Info", Jg. 21, Heft 1+2
(Sonderband: Die Sieben Todsünden in
der Frühen Neuzeit"), 2010. 22–34.
Strickland, D. H., The Epiphany of
Hieronymys Bosch. Imagining Antichrist
and Others from the Middle Ages to the
Reformation (Studies in Medieval and
Early Renaissance Art History), Turnhout:
Harvey Miller, 2016, ISBN 978-1-909400-
55-9
 van Dijck, G.C.M. "Op zoek naar
Jheronimus van Aken alias Bosch. De
feiten. Familie, vrienden en
opdrachtgevers". Zaltbommel: Europese
Bibliotheek, 2001. ISBN 90-288-2687-4
Enrico Malizia, Hieronymus Bosch.
Insigne pittore nel crepuscolo del medio
evo. Stregoneria, magia, alchimia,
simbolismo, Youcanprint Ed., Roma,
2015. ISBN 978-88-91171-74-0

Further reading
Ilsink, Matthijs; Koldeweij, Jos (2016).
Hieronymus Bosch: Painter and
Draughtsman – Catalogue raisonné. Yale
 University Press. p. 504. ISBN 978-0-
300-22014-8.

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related
to Hieronymus Bosch.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911

Encyclopædia Britannica article Bosch,
Jerom.

Jheronimus Bosch Art Center

Hieronymus Bosch at Ibiblio
"Hieronymus Bosch, Tempter and
Moralist" Analysis by Larry Silver.
 Hieronymus Bosch—The complete
works , 188 works by Bosch
Bosch Research and Conservation
Project (BRCP)
Hieronymus Bosch, General Resources ,
ColourLex
Bosch, the Fifth Centenary Exhibition: At
the Prado
Works at Open Library

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