Bosch: The 5th Centenary Exhibition

by Pilar Silva Maroto

The Museo del Prado houses the largest known collection of works by Jheronimus Bosch. Among its holdings are The Adoration of the Magi and The Garden of Earthly Delights triptychs, as well as the original of The Haywain, making it the ‘home of Bosch’ and the perfect institution to hold a major exhibition marking the quincentenary of the artist’s death. This magnificent, richly illustrated book reproduces these masterpieces and other recently cleaned and restored paintings, and reveals hitherto unknown facets of Bosch’s art. A distinguished team of Bosch scholars contribute to the volume. Pilar Silva Maroto’s essay presents an updated biography of Bosch and his family, and includes all the surviving documents dating from his lifetime. It also locates the artist in the context of his home town, ’s-Hertogenbosch, and offers an in-depth appreciation of his status as a painter and draughtsman. Eric De Bruyn considers Bosch’s sources in texts and images; Paul Vandenbroeck, his values and ideology; and Larry Silver, the sins and their punishment, a fundamental theme in the artist’s work. Finally, there is a ‘conversation’ between Reindert Falkenburg and The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych, and a reflection by Fernando Checa on the reception of Bosch at the Habsburg court in Flanders and in Spain in the 16th century. The catalogue entries for the paintings belonging to the Prado collection discuss the findings of recent technical research carried out specifically for the exhibition, which has shed new light on these works.

Genres: Art, History

400 pages, Paperback

Published January 5, 2017

Reviews

[Marc Borrás · Rating 4 out of 5]

Algunas partes son magníficas, otras no tanto. Este es el gran fallo del libro: su irregularidad. Las fichas de algunas obras aportan poco y son pobres, si bien no son la mayoría.
Lo peor que tiene es la latente problemática —y enfado— con respecto a algunas de las conclusiones hechas por BRCP. Así, las piezas que en 2016 el equipo de investigadores holandeses aseguraron que debían ser retiradas del corpus pictórico del artista son defendidas con ahínco, pero no consiguen demostrar el error de dichos investigadores.
Lo mejor son algunos de los textos —que no todos— que anteceden al catálogo de obras que se expusieron en el Prado.