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"Luminous Art & Design :: Art & Artists"
Hieronymus Bosch :: Biography and Books"
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Hieronymus Bosch (c1450–1516), also known as Jeroen Bosch, was a Dutch painter in the 15th and 16th century. His work depicted sin and evil of man using obscure symbolism and was an inspiration for the surrealist movement of the 20th century.
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Hieronymus Bosch or Jeroen Bosch (real name Jeroen van Aken) was a Dutch painter of the Northern Renaissance in the 15th and 16th centuries. In Spanish he is often called El Bosco. Even though he internationally famous during his life, we don’t know much about him nowadays. He was probably born around 1450 from a painters family. His father Anthonis van Aken was an art painter, as were his brother and three uncles. He lived his life in 's-Hertogenbosch in the south of the present-day Netherlands.
Bosch was an active member of the Brotherhood of Our Lady. It is believed that he received his commissions through this religious group, because unlike other painters of this period Jeroen Bosch did not travel much. According to accounts he was commissioned to paint altarpieces for the Cathedral of 's Hertogenbosch and a painting of the Last Judgement by Philip the Handsome, Archduke of Austria. All these artworks did not survive.
Jeroen Bosch lived in the period that was marked by the introduction of the Italian Renaissance. However, he was indifferent to developments and created his work in a style that was late-Gothic. It is only in the subjectivism of his art that makes him an artist of the new age.
The Temptation and The Last Judgment were recurring themes in Bosch’ paintings. The artist seemed to be obsessed by sin and evil of man. He painted images of demons, fantastical half-human creatures in imaginary landscapes and apocalyptic scenes. He did this with a fantasy and symbolism that was not common at the end of the Middle Ages. Jeroen Bosch is now often considered to be a forerunner of Surrealism and inspired many other artists. Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525-1569) was influenced by Bosch's work and made paintings in a similar style. Jan Mandijn (1500-1560) was another artist inspired by Hieronymus Bosch.
Hieronymus Bosch painted several triptychs, three paintings on wooden panels that are attached to each other and could open and close. His masterpieces were The Garden of Earthly Delights (after 1466) and the Temptation of St. Anthony (ca. 1500). In these, Bosch painted a world dominated by temptations, evil and punishments by using a symbolism that was probably based on Flemish proverbs and folk legend. His work and symbolism is so complex and original that interpretation of the meaning of his paintings is extremely difficult.
Some of Bosch’ work was signed, but none of them dated. This makes it extremely difficult to attribute work to his name and put them in their relative chronology. Some copies of his work were believed to be original, but altogether now only 23 paintings remain attributed to him. King Philip II of Spain collected some of his finest creations and as a result the Prado Museum in Madrid owns relatively many works of Hieronymus Bosch.
The exact day or cause of Jeroen Bosch’ death is not known, but he was buried at 9 August 1516. When he died, he left no followers but only imitators who copied the style without understanding of the meaning.
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