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Bosch, Hieronymus: Paradise and Hell |
![]() 171.3K, 761 x 1117 | Paradise and Hell Painted: 1510 Left and right panels of a triptych oil on wood Each panel 135 x 45 cm Prado Madrid |
The greatest Netherlandish artist of the
period are not found among the adherents of the New Style but among
those who, like
Grunewald
in Germany, refused to be drawn into the
modern movement from the South. In the Dutch town of
Hertogenbosch there lived such a painter, who was called
Hieronymous Bosch. Very little is known about him. We do not
know how old he was when he died in 1516, but he must have
been active for a considerable time since he became an independent
master in 1486. Like Grunewald, Bosch showed that the traditions
and achievements of painting which had been developed to represent
reality most convincingly could be turned round, as it were, to give
us an equally plausible picture of things no human eye had seen. He
became famous for his terrifying representations of the powers of evil.
Perhaps it is no accident that the gloomy King Philip II of Spain, later
in the century, had a special predilection for this artist, who was so
much concerned with man's wickedness. The picture shows two
wings from one of Bosch's triptychs he bought and which is therefore
still in Spain. On the left we watch evil invading the world. The creation
of Eve is followed by the temptation of Adam and both are driven out
of Paradise, while high above in the sky we see the fall of the rebellious
angels, who are hurled from heaven as a swarm of repulsive insects. On the
other wing we are shown a vision of hell. There we see horror piled upon
horror, fires and torments and all manner of fearful demons, half animal,
half human or half machine, who plague and punish the poor sinful souls
for all eternity. For the first and perhaps for the only time, an artist had
succeeded in giving concrete and tangible shape to the fears that had
haunted the minds of man in the Middle Ages. It was an achievement
which was perhaps only possible at this very moment, when the old ideas
were still vigorous and yet the modern spirit had provided the artist with
methods of representing what he saw. Perhaps Hieronymus Bosch could
have written on one of his paintings of hell what
Jan van Eyck
wrote on his peaceful scene of the Arnolfinis' betrothal: 'I was there'.
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