I am going to go the Janskerk come spring.
Jon Presco
In 1560 Felipe de Guevara wrote about a pupil of Bosch, a “discipulo”, who was as good as his master and even signed his works with his name.[2] Immediately after this, and without starting a new paragraph, De Guevara refers to the painting of the Seven Deadly Sins as characteristic of his style. This brought some scholars, as early as Dollmayr in 1898, to ascribe the work to this pupil, but most of them have argued, in spite of the context, that De Guevara had returned here to a description of the works of Bosch himself. For long the painting was considered therefore to be a work from Bosch’s youth. Several of the costumes however suggest a much later date, around 1500. This, together with the recent dendrochronological dating of many of Bosch’s own panels, the fact that this work has not been painted on oak and the fact that aberrant techniques are used – like the use of a ruler – have revived the idea that the painting is not by Bosch himself.
[edit] Summary
In the painting, each sin has its own scene, in the pride scene, a demon is shown holding a mirror in front a woman. In anger, a man is about to kill a woman symbolizing murder as an effect of wrath. The small circles also have details. In Death of Sinner, death is shown at the door step along with an angel and a demon while the priest says the sinner’s Last Rites, In Glory, the saved are entering Heaven, with Jesus and the saints, at the gate of Heaven an Angel prevents a demon from ensnaring a woman. Saint Peter is shown as the gatekeeper. In Judgment Christ shown in glory while angels wake up the dead and in Hell demons torment sinners according to their sins. Examples include: gluttony a demon “feeds” a man food of hell. Another example is greed where misers are boiled in a pot of gold.
Hieronymus Bosch (English pronunciation: /ˌhaɪ.əˈrɒnɨməs ˈbɒʃ/, Dutch: [ɦijeːˈɾoːnimʏs ˈbɔs]; born Jheronimus van Aken Dutch pronunciation: [jeɪˈɾoːnimʏs vɑn ˈaːkə(n)];[1] (c. 1450 – 9 August 1516), was a Dutch painter. His work is known for its use of fantastic imagery to illustrate moral and religious concepts and narratives.[2]
Contents
[hide]
1 Life
2 Art
3 Interpretations
4 Debates on attribution
5 Works
6 Notes
7 References
8 External links
[edit] Life
Signature from the Hermit Saints Triptych.
Hieronymus Bosch was born Jheronimus (or Joen,[3] 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 (pronounced Jeronimus Boss in Middle Dutch).[4] The name derives from his birthplace, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, which is commonly called “Den Bosch”.
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 Brotherhood of Our 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.[5]
First known entry of Bosch’ name in the municipal record, 5 April 1474.
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 Brotherhood of Our Lady.[6] 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.[7] Bosch first appears in the municipal record in 1474, when he is named along with two brothers and a sister.
‘s-Hertogenbosch was a flourishing city in fifteenth century Brabant, in the south of the present-day Netherlands, at the time part of the Burgundian Netherlands, and during his 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 older than the artist. The couple moved to the nearby town of Oirschot, where his wife had inherited a house and land from her wealthy family.[8]
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.[9]
[edit] Art
The Garden of Earthly Delights, Bosch’s most widely known triptych, El Prado Museum
Bosch produced several triptychs. Among his most famous is The Garden of Earthly Delights. This painting, for which the original title has not survived, depicts paradise with Adam and Eve and many wondrous animals on the left panel, the earthly delights with numerous nude figures and tremendous fruit and birds on the middle panel, and hell with depictions of fantastic punishments of the various types of sinners on the right panel. When the exterior panels are closed the viewer can see, painted in grisaille, God creating the Earth. These paintings—especially the Hell panel—are painted in a comparatively sketchy manner which contrasts with the traditional Flemish style of paintings, where the smooth surface—achieved by the application of multiple transparent glazes—conceals the brushwork. In this painting, and more powerfully in works such as his Temptation of St. Anthony (Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon), Bosch draws with his brush. Not surprisingly, Bosch is also one of the most revolutionary draftsmen in the history of art, producing some of the first autonomous sketches in Northern Europe.
Bosch never dated his paintings. But—unusual for the time—he seems to have signed several of them, although other signatures purporting to be his are certainly not. Fewer than 25 paintings remain today that can be attributed to him. In the late sixteenth-century, Philip II of Spain 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, the The Haywain Triptych and The Stone Operation.
[edit] Interpretations
In the twentieth 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 of 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 savage painting of Bosch. “Although the Brethren remained loyal to the Pope, they still saw it as their duty to denounce the abuses and scandalous behaviour of many priests: the corruption which both Erasmus and Bosch satirised in their work”.[10]
The Owl’s Nest. Pen and bistre on paper. 140 × 196 mm. Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Others, following a strain of Bosch-interpretation datable already to the sixteenth-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 Dutch art historian 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.”[11]
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.[citation needed] His depictions of sinful humanity, 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.[12] However, the conflict of interpretations that his works still elicit raise profound questions about the nature of “ambiguity” art of his period.
Some writers attempt to interpret his imagery using the language of Freudian psychology. However, such theses are commonly rejected; according to Gibson, “what we choose to call the libido was denounced by the medieval church as original sin; what we see as the expression of the subconscious mind was for the Middle Ages the promptings of God or the Devil.”[13]
[edit] Debates on attribution
The exact number of Bosch’s surviving works has been a subject of considerable debate. He signed only seven of his 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 sixteenth 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.[14]
Over the years, scholars have attributed to him fewer and fewer of the works once thought to be his, and today only 25 are definitively attributed to him.
The Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady (Illustre Lieve Vrouwe Broederschap) was founded in 1318 in ‘s-Hertogenbosch to promote the veneration of the Mother of God. The brotherhood was organized around a carved wooden image of the Virgin Mary in St John’s Cathedral in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.[1] [2] The Brotherhood had two types of members: ordinary members and sworn members, also called ‘swan-brethren’ because they used to donate a swan for the yearly banquet. Sworn members were clerics in principle; in fact they were often chosen among the nobility, the magistrates, etc. As a result, the Brotherhood also functioned as an important social network. A member was the painter Hieronymus Bosch.[3][4]
In 1494, Maximilian relinquished his regency under the terms of the Treaty of Senlis and Philip, aged 16, took over the rule of the Burgundian lands himself, although in practice authority was derived from a council of Burgundian notables. On 20 October 1496, he married Infanta Joanna, daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, in Lier, Belgium.
The marriage was one of a set of family alliances between the Habsburgs and the Trastámara, designed to strengthen against growing French power, which had increased significantly thanks to the policies of Louis XI and the successful assertion of regal power after war with the League of the Public Weal. The matter became more urgent after Charles VIII’s invasion of Italy (known as the First Peninsular War).
27 March 1482–25 September 1506: Duke of Brabant as Philip III
n 1288, the Dukes of Brabant became also Duke of Limburg. The title fell to the Dukes of Burgundy in 1430. Later on, it followed with the Burgundian inheritance until the French Revolution, although the northern part of the territory of Brabant was actually governed by the United Provinces during the 17th and 18th century (see Generality Lands).
Book Description: Michiel Hillen van Hoochstraten,, Antwerp, 1519. 8vo. Re-cased in a 17th-century binding (overlapping vellum), title in ink on spine. Title in red & black with red woodcut rebus of the author’s name: a rose followed by ‘mondt’ = Rosemondt; woodcut initials. 251 (5) ff. [Collation: (A)8
B-2K8]. Rare early edition of this interesting Latin work on confession by the highly respected Louvain (moderate) inquisitor and professor of theology Godschalk Rosemont. The first edition was published in May 1518, followed by an edition of March 1519 (for H.E. van Homberch), this edition, and an edition in 1525, all published by Van Hoochstraten.Godschalc Rosemondt (1483-1526) of Eindhoven was a distinguished alumnus of Louvain where he was appointed extraordinary professor of theology in 1515 and ordinary professor in 1520. For the half-year August 1520-February 1521 he was rector of the university and it was at this time that he was in communication with Erasmus (cf. Allen Ep. 1153, 1164 & 1172), who called him in one letter: “Vir melior quam pro vulgari sorte theologorum”. Rosemondt was less dogmatic than most inquisitors and his writings have been compared with those of Erasmus. He was also known as an eloquent vicar and friend of the Dutch Pope Adrian VI. Between 1516 and 1519 he composed many devotional works, all but the Confessionale in Dutch. The Confessionale is partially a translation of the Boecxken van der Biechten but is far more detailed and lengthy. It shares some of its content as well as its amiable tone with the Boecxken, published one year earlier. The content reflects the fact that it is intended for a better-educated reader. It is the first book in which the Summa of Thomas Aquinas is used for resolving conflicts of conscience. For his audacious statements in chapter XX, ‘De excommunicatione’ Rosemondt was rebuked by Pope Benedict XIV, who considered the book to be in discord with the views of the church. Although Rosemondt based his arguments on old concepts of Catholic clerical law, he expanded these principles to a much greater extent than the church was prepared to accept. The conrector of the Latin School at Antwerp, Levinus Linius (+1533) contributed a laudatory poem, printed on the verso of the title. Tentler considers the Confessionale as ‘A work of learning and pastoral wisdom’. Fine copy with various contemp. annotations and underlinings in text and ownership’s entry on title (others erased).- (Title sl. stained). NK 1821 (mentions 4 copies); BCNI 713; Machiels R-267;NNBW V, cols. 612-3; Biogr. Nationale de Belgique XX, pp. 102-10 (list of works by Rosemondt compiled by Willem de Vreese; see 107-8 for this work); Adams R-782 (ed. Antwerp, M. Hillen van Hoochstraten, March 1519); Gistelinck & Sabbe 783 (ed. Antwerp, M. Hillen van Hoochstraten, 1525); C. COPPENS, ‘Het “Confessionale” van Godschalc Rosemondt, spiegel van een nieuwe maatschappij’, in: Ex Officina: Bulletin van de vrienden van de Leuvense Universiteitsbibl., 2 (1985), pp. 13-36, 94-108; Th.N. Tentler, Sin and confession onnthe Eve of the Reformation (1977), pp. 37-8. Bookseller Inventory # A8EGJZ5O5SL3
Rosamond Press 