Bosch: Hieronymus Bosch and the Lisbon Temptation: A View From The 3rd Millennium

by Virginia Pitts Rembert

Hieronymus Bosch was painting terrifying yet strangely likable monsters, often with a touch of humour, long before computer games were invented. His works are assertive statements about the mental illness that befalls any man who abandons the teachings of Christ. With a life that spanned 1450 to 1516, Bosch was born at the height of the Renaissance and witnessed its religious wars. Medieval traditions and values were crumbling, paving the way to thrust man into a new universe where faith had lost its power and much of its magic. Bosch set out to warn doubters of the perils awaiting all and any who lost their faith in God. His favorite allegories were hell, heaven and lust. He held that everyone had to choose between one of two options: either heaven or hell. Bosch brilliantly exploited the symbolism of a wide range of fruits and plants to lend sexual overtones to his themes, which author Virginia Pitts Rembert meticulously deciphers to provide readers with new insight into this fascinating artist and his works.

Genres: Art

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Annie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ein sehr seltsamer Einstieg in Boschs Welt. Vielleicht ist es auch wieder passend, dass ein Maler, der so viel Verwirrung stiftete hier so wirr abgehandelt wird. Das Buch ist hochgradig anstrengend. Vorwort und Einleitung ist komplett überflüssig. Die sehr schön detailliert und groß abgedruckten Bilder sind ja ganz nett, aber die "Interpretation" folgt nicht den Bilder. Vielmehr gibt es Interpretationen des Gesamtwerkes, die sich lose über das Buch verteilen. Es gibt zwar systematische Unterteilung und vielleicht kann man als Fachidiot Freude an der Darstellungsweise habe, als Laie ist dieses Buch jedenfalls nicht als Einstieg geeignet. Vielleicht liegt es auch ein bisschen am Format eBook, in einem richtigen Buch hätte man vielleicht mehr die Muse das entsprechend gerade behandelte Gemälde im Buch zu suchen. Beim eBook brauche ich sehr viele Browser-Tabs nebenher und lande meist auf Seiten, die viel deutlicher die einzelnen Bildelemente erklären.

[isamzg · Rating 1 out of 5]

No tiene un enfoque concreto ni ofrece contexto de muchas obras, se limita a explicar un poco de algunas al principio con unos textos infumables

[Servabo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bosch was a painter who acted to subconscious directives within the framework of his rational intentions cannot be doubted. His paintings are compelling in their power on the viewer. Psychologists believe that the subconscious mind is much alike in every person; so, what Bosch produced by allowing his subconscious mind its play, might evoke a deep response by recognition of something with which the viewer also held subconscious familiarity. The fact of the subconscious, insisted upon by modern psychologists and exploited by modern Surrealists, has been given more and more recognition in modern times. That human behaviour is not accidental, that all humans act according to deep-seated and early-formed directives within the psyche; that the attempt to ignore and repress the instincts is made at the individual's peril.

The mind not only possess levels lying below consciousness, but above and surrounding it as well. The unconscious is not just an inessential and unreal appendage to the conscious, but that it is a world with activities, reasons, and laws of its own. Bosch was an artist who let the unconscious go its own way and experienced it as reality. Because most artistic creations have meaning in all of their parts, it is expected that the works of Bosch should as well. There is no way, however, to make the connections between each part in their works logically consistent in meaning. The only things that can be rationally understood are the total idea and the sources for individual parts. What has been made of these sources, however, is not a new logic. It is an artistic creation.

Today Hieronymus Bosch is seen as a hugely individualistic painter with deep insight into humanity's desires and deepest fears. Whatever the means employed by the artist to achieve his effects and whether they were fully intentional or not, it is certain that he did intend to convey the impression of evil. In fact, it should always be kept in mind that this was the painter's central motivation. The desire to record the pervasiveness of evil in the world and in its many guises. It is left to the viewer, not to explain what is in the painter's mind - but to examine the wonder engendered in his or her own mind and, doing so, be infinitely intrigued.

[Sezer Akın · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hieronymus Bosch, 1453’te dünyaya gelmiş. İki kuşaktır ‘s-Hertogenosch”ta yaşayan ressamın Bosch lakabı, ressamın bulunduğu bölgeden geliyormuş. Eğitimini, büyükbabası ve babasından almış. 1480 yılında ilk defa ressamı olarak anılır. Sonrasında ise, Rönesansın en önemli simalarından biri olacaktı. Küçük bir tez öne süreyim; Dante, “İlahi Komedya”sı 1472’de ilk kez basıldı. Bosch’un eserleri ise genellikle 1485-1506/8 arası yapılan çalışmaları, özellikle “Dünyevi Zevkler Bahçesi”ndeki “cennet ve cehennem” panolarındaki tasvirler, Dante’nin büyük sükse yapmış “İlahi Komedya”sından ilham almış olabilir. Kim bilir?

Bosch’un ölümüyle beraber, sanat tarihçileri eserlerini inceleyip, bakış açısını reddetmişler ve Ademciler tarikatının Üstad-ı Azam’ının cemiyetin gizli tasvirlerini eleştirenler, onu “şeytan imalatçısı” (Gossart) olarak ünlenmesini neden olmuşlar. Resimlerinde kullandığı cehennem tasvirleri o kadar gerçekçi bulunmuş ki, insanlar bunların hayal ürünü olduğuna inanmakta güçlük çekmiş. Bu sebeple Bosch, Ortaçağ’a ait en kötü şeylerin temsilcisi olarak görülmüş. Ressam, karanlığa gömüldü ve iki yüzyıl boyunca ilgi görmemiş. Yeniden ilgi görmesi 19. yüzyılın sonlarında gerçekleşmiş. Bosch, İspanya’da popüler üne kavuştu. Kral II. Felipe’nin bunda payı fazla imiş. Ressamın kırk çalışmasından otuz altı tanesi II. Felipe’nin mülkiyetindeymiş. Aslında Bosch, sanat tarihçileri Pieter Bruegel’i incelerken Hollanda resminin ayrıksı isminin farkına varmışlar. Bir süre sonra, Giuseppe Arcimboldo ile beraber Amerikan dergilerinde sembolizmin kurucuları arasında gösterilmiş.

Bosch, kıymeti sonradan anlaşılan, üzerine yüzlerce teori kusulan, Flaman resim geleneklerini şüphesiz iyi kullanan ve mütemadiyen, hayalgücünün gelişmişliğinden dolayı yanlış anlaşılan kıymetli bir ressam.

[Artūrs Lūsis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A neat little book, of course, but the essay is poorly conceived, commentary lacking in concrete detail and depth (though small, the book has a wide spread of pages upon which to write more elaborately, with much less repetition, and very poorly rephrased at that).

I was unfortunately saddened by the inconsistency in titling of the reproduction pictures when it comes to describing detailed portrays, which makes this book much less useful and helpful for students of Bosch's work.

To elaborate, only a few reproductions of painting detail have its content and theme described, usually in brackets, but then there are far more images of detail portrayed (for example, Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Antony which has mentions of detail content (p. 144., p.148), but not throughout, and the like).

As I myself am a beginner in the works of Bosch, the amount of religious characters and themes at play in the master's body of work is quite overwhelming, and truly I'm left only to enjoy the pretty pictures and merely some aspects of the essay when it comes to retelling that of other researchers work, basic facts from Bosch's biography, and minor historic events and influences on the artist and his researchers.