Hieronymus Bosch
Biography and Paintings of Medieval Northern Renaissance Fantasy Artist
Visual Arts Guide

Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516)

Now regarded as one of the most imaginative Old Masters of the Northern Renaissance, Hieronymus Bosch was an early 16th century Dutch painter, renowned for his fantasy paintings of demons, machines and nightmarish figure painting. Influenced by the religious notions of the time, his most famous work depicting sin and moral failing is The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1485 (Prado Museum, Madrid). Although in his own time it was widely assumed his paintings were meant merely to amuse, some scholars since have attributed a deeper meaning to his highly original and complex works.

Bosch was born in Hertogenbosch, the capital of the Dutch province of Brabant. Little is known of his life, training or what he thought about his own art. His date of birth is only an estimate, based on a dated hand drawing, which may have been a self-portrait.

As far as we know, he lived and worked his whole life in Hertogenbosch. He came from a family of painters, and it is likely that he learned fine art painting from his father. It is known that he had 3 brothers, all of whom went on to become painters and were members of the Brotherhood and Our Lady, a wealthy organisation that commissioned various works from members of the Bosch family. Their father was artistic adviser to the Brotherhood.

Bosch became a very popular painter during his time, and was hugely inventive, producing fantastical, almost Gothic nightmarish visions. His work provided a complete contrast to Italian Renaissance art portraying man in control of a rational universe. The Garden of Earthly Delights demonstrates the painter’s ability to create a detailed and complex landscape. The work is divided into 4 panels. The outer panels, when closed, show the Third Day of Creation, painted in grisaille. Inside, the Garden of Earthly Delights is flanked on the right by Hell and on the left by the Garden of Eden. A wild orgy is taking place, signifying lust as the main reason of man's downfall. There are over 1,000 figures in the work, each highly individual and involved in their own action. His paintings have a slightly rough finish, which was in contrast to other Flemish painters at the time who tried to finish paintings as smoothly as possible, to belie the fact that they were man-made.

Some time around 1480, Bosch married Aleyt Goyaerts van den Meerveen, who was apparently a good few years older than him. She had inherited a house and farm from her family.

Numerous paintings bearing Bosch's signature can be found in museums and private collections all over the world, but many of these are only copies of his original works. He never dated his works, and signed few, which makes it difficult to attribute his works. That said, about 25 pictures and a handful of drawings can be attributed to him with reasonable certainty, these include: Allegory of Gluttony and Lust, c.1490 (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven), The Conjurer, c.1500 (Musée Municipal, St.-Germain-en-Laye), Death and the Miser (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC), Ecce Homo, c.1476 (original version at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt), The Extraction of the Stone of Madness (The Cure of Folly), c.1475 (Museo del Prado), Paradise and Hell, c.1510 (Museo del Prado) and Terrestrial Paradise, c.1500 (Palazzo Ducale, Venice).

In the 21st century, some scholars have come to believe that Bosch was merely using his art to reflect the religious and moral codes of his day, depicting images which could quite easily be heard in a church ceremony in the middle ages. While others claim that Bosch was hundreds of years ahead of his time and was in fact an early Surrealist, along the lines of Salvador Dali. Some writers have tried to link him to the dream works of Freud. Whatever the case, he remains one of the most extravagant and famous artists of Northern Europe. Hieronymus Bosch died in 1516 and many painters went on to imitate his style. After the painter’s death, King Philip II of Spain, who shared Bosch’s surreal dark vision of the world, bought many of the artist’s works, which is why so many are in the Museo del Prado in Madrid today.

Not until Pieter Bruegel the Elder did Bosch have a successor, and many art critics consider him to be one of the greatest figurative artists of the Northern Renaissance and one of the most imaginative painters in the history of art.

...For a short account of one of the most outstanding artists of the Italian Renaissance, see Michelangelo.

• For information about the best artists in Ireland, see: Irish Art Guide

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