Hieronymus Bosch was painting terrifying, yet strangely likeable, monsters, long before computer games were invented, often with a touch of humour. His works are assertive statements about the mental dangers that befall those who abandon the teachings of Christ. With a life that spanned from 1450 to 1516, Bosch was born at the height of the Renaissance and witnessed its wars of religion. Medieval traditions and values were crumbling, thrusting man into a new universe where faith had lost some of its power and much of its magic.
Bosch set out to warn doubters of the perils awaiting all and any who lost their faith in God. Believing that everyone had to make their own moral choices, he focused on themes of hell, heaven and lust. He brilliantly exploited the symbolism of a wide range of fruits and plants to lend sexual overtones to his themes.
Оглавление
Virginia Pitts Rembert. Hieronymus Bosch
Introduction
The Literature on Bosch to Wilhelm Fränger
Fränger’s Thesis (Epiphanies and Absurdities)
Fränger and Beyond
A More Prosaic View
Saint Anthony and the Devil
Saint Anthony
Temptation by the recollection of the responsibilities and pleasures of his past life
Temptation by the desires of the flesh
Temptation by pride
Temptation by physical torture
All the demons of hell are unleashed
Temptation by constant hordes
Further Temptations as recounted by Anthony himself
Final Temptations
The Prince of Darkness
The Society of Witches
Other Sorcerers and Necromancers
The Tarot
Alchemy
The Lisbon Triptych
Conclusion
Bibliography
Отрывок из книги
Death and the Miser (detail), c. 1485–1490.
Oil on panel, 93 × 31 cm.
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Table of the Mortal Sins (detail: Envy), late 15th century.
