A Closer Look at Hieronymus Bosch
I loved the depth and detail of this course which began by looking at the little we know about Bosch’s live and where his style of imagery may have come from, looking in particular at print culture and the marginalia of illuminated manuscripts. We also discussed his unusual structures of paintings using religious forms for secular although morally driven works.
Week two we moved onto some specific works and looked at the way then represented sin and salvation and discussed whether they have a satirical side to them. I was fascinated by how many reflected popular moralistic sayings of the time and by some of the more detailed symbolism. I won’t be looking at a jug on a stick the same way ever again!
Finally we concentrated on his most famous work, The Garden of Earthly Delights. Paula had a wonderful early description of the work although we are unsure who it was made for. She did speculate that it was for Englebert II of Nassau and looked at who he was and why he might have commissioned it. She then took us through the imagery in detail from Paradise on the left through to hell on the right spending a lot of time on the strange middle panel. She told us how at one point it was called The Strawberry after the number of them in the picture, hence the image I have chosen to use.
Paula had wonderful detailed images which I suspect made it easier to see than if she had lectured in front of it. Zoom has some advantages!
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