Hieronymus Bosch - God is Watching

Hieronymus Bosch - Late Gothic Artist

Hieronymus Bosch is another painter whose paintings I find interesting. Here is a short introduction about him and details about some of his work which I particularly like.

Hieronymus Bosch was a 15th century artist whose work is characterized as Late Gothic. He is also known as a medieval surrealist. Coming from a family of artists, this Early Netherlandish painter was born in around 1450 in the town of Hertogenbosch, Netherlands (Holland). He was originally named Jheronimus (or Jeroen) van Aken but changed it later to Bosch (pronounced Boss) to reflect his hometown. At the age of around 30, he married Aleyt Goyaerts van den Meerveen, a wealthy woman who was a few years older than him. Around 8 years later, he joined a conservative religious group known as the Brotherhood of Our Lady. Most of his paintings are religious in nature.

Hieronymus Bosch is known for making several triptychs or works with three paintings on wooden panels that are attached to each other. Technically, he painted in a style known as ‘alla prima’, a painting technique in which pigments are laid on in one application with little or no underpainting. Most of his works include images of demons, half-human animals and machines which depict sin, evil and human moral failings. Many accept that the paintings of Bosch were created to teach specific moral and spiritual truths and that each image has an exact meaning.

The Garden of Earthly Delights.

The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch is an oil painting on wood panels. This triptych depicts paradise and creation of man on the left panel, earth in the middle and hell on the right panel. It was painted in around 1504.

The Last Judgement

This is another triptych or three panelled painting by Hieronymus Bosch. The outside of the shutters is Grisaille on panel, while the inside shutters and centre are oil on panel. The painting depicts ‘Judgement Day’ as mentioned in the Bible – a day when God will descend to the earth.

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things

This painting of oil on wood panels is in the form of a tabletop. The four small circles show pictures of death, judgement, hell and glory. The seven deadly sins are depicted in the central circle starting clockwise from wrath at the bottom to envy, greed, gluttony, sloth, lust and pride. The writing at the bottom is Latin for ‘Beware, Beware, God is Watching’.

Hieronymus Bosch died in 1516. As Bosch never dated any of his paintings and signed only seven of them, there is considerable speculation on the amount of works painted by him. Today, art scholars have definitively ascribed only around 25 paintings to him.

Do you have any favourite artist or any artwork you happen to admire?