Hieronymus Bosch- Mystic of his Time Period?

In the beginning of the course, a majority of the images that we covered dealt with religion. We saw so many different takes on certain scenes. These scenes include but are certainly not limited to the Virgin Mary being told that she would become the mother of the Son of God, and Jesus Christ being hung on the cross. While I personally have nothing against religion, I found little to nothing pleasing about the art. No matter how much time was spent discussing how the angle at which the angel was facing Mary or the left to right orientation of movement while Jesus was being brought down from the cross, they all seemed like safe depictions.

A little while after the midterm, we were asked in class what our favorite painting was, or who our favorite artist was. Determined to break the silence in the classroom, I tried to look through what I felt were monotonous interpretations of holy happenings. Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” popped into my head. Created from around 1505 to 1515, it remains one of his most famous pieces to date. It also fascinates the modern day viewer, myself included.

Upon initially viewing this, I thought that this triptych was supposed to perhaps be satirical, or even mock religion. Surely such an act would have been scandalous during this time period? The middle panel, with its depiction of sin is what draws the most attention. The numerous fruits that are scattered throughout this painting are a repetitive motif for sexual pleasure. Yet the fruits are not subtly placed in the background, nor do the people seem to be repenting for their sins. Instead, the people on earth are frolicking around naked. The fruits are used constructively, imaginatively, and considering what they symbolize, even scandalously. Another thing to point out is that unlike the panel of hell on the right, this panel features a rather saturated color palette, something that I felt I hadn’t seen previously in the course.

Because the middle panel seemed to represent a world where people embraced sin, I thought of Bosch as a revolutionary. After doing some research (and rereading the textbook) it seems that so is not the case, which makes Hieronymus even more fascinating a painter to study. He was a social critic, and according to the Dutch scholar Dirk Bax, he was a moralist who looked down upon the lower class. He seemed to believe this group to be sinners, as depicted in the image.

Despite standing out from the crowd for me, Bosch seems to be no more outstanding than the rest He relied heavily on the use of symbolism during a time when symbols were used to constitute a basic visual language. Also, in the left and right panels (which have been purposely ignore until now) there is a traditional representation of Adam and Eve and hell. Hell is depicted using a strikingly darker palette, a technique that has already before seen. Bosch believed that the world was teeming with sin, and he used this painting to represent his criticism of what had then been contemporary society.

I had never heard of Bosch prior to this course, but he is now my favorite artist from the time period. Though he was not working against the religious codes of his times, his images depicted sin and infidelity as seemingly bright and joyous, even though they served as criticism. He was not ahead of times necessarily in what he chose to believe in, but I feel as if he was ahead of his time in how he chose to represent these views. The Garden of Earthly Delights is almost fully abstract in its representation of sin.

Citations:

"Morbid Outlook - Hieronymus Bosch." Morbidoutlook. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.

Stokstad, Marilyn, Michael Watt. Cothren, and Frederick M. Asher. "Sixteenth-Century Art in Northern Europe and the Iberian Peninsula." Art History. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2011. Print.