Bosch

by Alessia Devitini Dufour

Aniołowie i monstra wsiadają na "statek głupców": malarstwo Boscha zaczyna swój rejs w kierunku archipelagu podświadomości, wioząc ładunek przesądów i nadziei, mądrości ludowej i wyrafinowanego humanizmu.

Genres: Art

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

This little book is part of the same series as the book on Rubens that I recently read. This book has all the disadvantages of the other volume and is slightly worse - a busy and less clear page layout and an even more extensive focus on Italy and Italian artists. From this I learnt that Ptolemy was wrong: the Sun does not orbit the Earth. No, the Sun orbits Italy. No prizes will be awarded for successfully guessing the native country of the author. However there were two reasons which convinced me that it was essential reading for me; it was written by a woman although admittedly by a proud and (overly) patriotic one and it was to hand in Dutch and thus helped me towards my public aim of half or more of my reading being written by women and reading more books not written in English. Two targets met with one book. Efficiency.

Anyway, the book itself is basically your basic introduction to Bosch. There's not much to say about him, He lived, he was married, he painted some pictures precise number unknown and he died. According to the author he also may have visited Italy, where he may have painted a fresco (based on the evidence that he painted a picture with the same theme but in a different style) and because of the powerful influence that Italy had upon him that he later painted one painting with a figure in three quarter profile which he could only have learnt how to do while in Italy - just as you can only learn to cook pasta by visiting Italy in person. Also while possibly in Italy he might have visited Venice at the same time as Albrecht Duerer, in which case he might have met him too! Reading that I did wonder quietly to myself 'but what if he left Venice one day before Duerer arrived - then he would have missed him entirely'.

That's enough fun. On the plus side the book is illustrated in colour throughout, however all the illustrations are small - the largest was about the size of half a postcard. Some of Bosch's paintings have slightly usual figures suggesting a sort of ecological horror or fantasy that are part insect and part plant or a tree that is part egg and part human, a festival of the organic, the author suggests that there might be an alchemical meaning to all this as some of the images look like alchemical symbols specifically an upside down man and a red egg. But maybe I need to take that as seriously as Bosch's visit to Italy.

Curiously the place to go to see lots of Bosch is Madrid, works by Bosch or attributed to him seem already in the sixteenth century to have been very popular with Spanish buyers, no explanation involving Italy or otherwise is offered for this.

[Massimo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dieses Buch konzentrierte sich zu sehr auf italienische Kunst.