Articles - Jeroen Bosch Plaza

Hsu 2023

“In the Manner of Jan Wellens de Cock? A Study of the Chimei Museum’s Christ in Limbo” (Yu Han Hsu) 2023

[in: Jos Koldeweij and Willeke Cornelissen (eds.), Jheronimus Bosch – His Workshop and His Followers – 5th International Jheronimus Bosch Conference, May 11-13, 2023, Jheronimus Bosch Art Center, ’s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands. Jheronimus Bosch Art Center, ’s-Hertogenbosch, 2023, pp. 110-130]

This paper focuses on the attribution of the Christ’s Descent into Hell panel by an anonymous Bosch follower, currently in the Chimei Museum (Taiwan) through the perspectives of iconography and technical studies. The panel is a variant of the Christ’s Descent into Hell panel in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. A number of motifs used by the Taiwan painter were also used by Bosch followers who can be situated in the environment of Jan Wellens de Cock. Technical studies of the Chimei painting do not provide further evidence to support a link with the circle of Jan de Cock, as the underdrawing and the original paint layers have not been well preserved. But the differences between the underdrawing and the final painted version reveal that the painter was actively adjusting and recreating the pre-existing design.

[explicit April 15, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]

Hobill 2023

“The link between Bosch and Bruegel: Pieter Coecke’s workshop as intermediary” (Astrid Hobill) 2023

Pieter Bruegel The Elder may have gained access to Boschian imagery and even to some of Bosch’s workshop materials in the workshop of his master Pieter Coecke van Aelst. It is possible that Bruegel had access to some of Bosch’s original paintings through the connections of his master. Furthermore, some of Coecke’s works contain Boschian imagery. Someone in Coecke’s workshop, perhaps not Coecke himself, was skilled in mimicking Bosch’s creatures. After Coecke had left the workshop of Bernart van Orley in Brussels, he began working in the Antwerp studio of Jan Mertens van Dornicke, an elusive artist who belonged to the group of painters known as the Antwerp Mannerists. In tandem with the rise of the Antwerp Mannerists came the proliferation of Boschian pastiches and copies-after-Bosch produced in Antwerp. The potential connection between the Antwerp Mannerists and the artists creating Bosch copies opens the door to an overlap between the Van Dornicke studio and Bosch’s followers. In his own workshop, Coecke may have employed at least one assistant (formerly working for Van Dornicke) who was highly proficient in Boschian imagery.

[explicit April 15, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]

Harada/Vandivere 2023

“Mandijn’s Monsters: Shining a light on the techniques and motifs of a Bosch follower” (Kathryn Harada and Abbie Vandivere) 2023

This paper discusses Jan Mandijn’s only signed work, the Tempations of St Anthony panel (Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum) and the St Christopher and the Christ Child panel (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) within the context of a core group of works attributed to Mandijn and to Pieter Huys. A material-technical comparison of both paintings and a comparison of motifs leads to the conclusion that the Los Angeles St Christopher can also be attributed to Jan Mandijn or at least to the Mandijn-Huys group. Technical examinations of paintings attributed to Mandijn have the potential to establish whether comparisons of underdrawings, techniques, and motifs can help to better understand his oeuvre within the context of Antwerp Bosch followers. Mandijn was more than simply a follower: he was a talented and inventive artist in his own right.

[explicit April 10, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]

Berdoy 2023

“A novel reading for the Garden of Earthly Delights: from new evidence in the image to a political narrative interpretation (the ABC hypothesis)” (Manuel Berdoy) 2023

[in: Jos Koldeweij and Willeke Cornelissen (eds.), Jheronimus Bosch – His Workshop and His Followers – 5th International Jheronimus Bosch Conference, May 11-13, 2023, Jheronimus Bosch Art Center, ’s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, Jheronimus Bosch Art Center, ’s-Hertogenbosch, 2023, pp. 50-73]

According to Berdoy, Bosch has inserted a number of visual ‘signposts’ into the interior panels of the Garden of Delights triptych showing the noble audience of the Burgundian court for whom the painting was intended the way to a socio-political hidden narrative. The author focuses on four of these so-called signposts: the giant butterfly, the giant mussel, and a number of ‘portraits’ in the central panel plus the nightjar in the right interior panel. These signposts are said to lead to a new interpretation of the triptych because they refer to a number of persons and events related to the late-fifteenth-century Burgundian court, from Charles the Bold up to Philip the Fair.

Berdoy’s ‘novel’ appoach is based on erroneous observations (the most striking ones being the interpretation of a man lying on his back as ‘dead’, the ‘identification’ of a building in one of the wings of the butterfly, and the ‘portraits’) and on extreme Hineininterpretation. Berdoy’s far-fetched conclusions are downright ludicrous, and dealing with them in more detail would be a share waste of time. There is also good news: as Berdoy is a biologist from Oxford university, we can now be pretty sure that the butterfly is a small tortoiseshell (aglais urticae), that the mussel is a freshwater pearl mussel (margaritifera margaritifera), and that the bird of prey sitting on a potty chair is a European nightjar (caprimulgus europaeus).

[explicit April 9, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]

Van Benthum 2023

“Bosch’s Earthly Paradises: the left panels of the Garden of Earthly Delights, the Vienna Last Judgement and the Haywain” (Jasmijn van Benthum) 2023

Van Benthum compares the left interior panels of the Haywain triptych, the Vienna Last Judgement triptych and the Garden of Delights triptych to each other. These Earthly Paradise panels show strong similarities. Thematically, they occupy the same place within the triptychs, in each case preceding the sinful people in the middle panels and the apocalyptic representation of hell in the right interior panels. Bosch’s pessimistic view and Christian morality pervade these three panels, resulting in a landscape showing signs of guilt and sin.

[explicit April 6, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]

Aikema 2023

“Jheronimus Bosch and the Renaissance in Europe” (Bernard Aikema) 2023

Aikema argues that ‘Boschian’ imagery is a major example of what may be called an ‘alternative Renaissance’, not based on the revival of classical Antiquity and the ‘discovery’ of the individual but rather on the exploration of new ways of expression, including flights of fantasy and, in general terms, a pluralistic view of the world as it appears in its various and often contradictory forms. Key words to capture this attitude are fantasia and curiositas. The ‘alternative Renaissance’ is a European phenomenon, manifesting itself strongly in both the Mediterranean world and in Habsburg-dominated Central Europe. Against this background, we may understand the sixteenth-century apparition of Boschian monsters, dreamlike visions, firebrands, and grotesques in ‘tapestry-like’ compositions and with great attention to (naturalistic) detail.

It may be observed that in this contribution the terms ‘Boschian inspiration’, ‘in the manner of Bosch’ and the like are sometimes used in a very broad sense.

[explicit April 4, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]

Van Wamel 2019

“De Calvarie met schenker door Jheronimus Bosch” (Marieke van Wamel) 2019

[in: Matthijs Ilsink, Bram de Klerck, and Annemarieke Willemsen (eds.), Het einde van de middeleeuwen – Vijftig kunstwerken uit de tijd van Bosch en Erasmus. Nijmeegse Kunsthistorische Studies – XXV, Uitgeverij Vantilt, Nijmegen, 2019, pp. 280-285]

In this contribution, Van Wamel focuses on Bosch’s Crucifixion panel (Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, inv. 6639), and in particular on the position and the outlook of the donor figure, which was once overpainted, after which the overpainting was removed leading to considerable damage of this part of the painting.

For a devotional painting, it is quite exceptional that the donor and the biblical figures share the same reality. Probably, the panel first functioned as a devotional piece, and after the donor’s death as an epitaph. In the times of Bosch, striped clothing was worn by all classes of society, and the negative social connotation of this type of clothing had strongly diminished. The donor seems to have belonged to the low nobility, and he may have been a military man.

[explicit December 19, 2023]

Pokorny 2019

“Man in een hopkorf met gierzwaluwen” (Erwin Pokorny)

Pokorny focuses on the Bosch drawing Man in a basket (Vienna, Albertina, inv. 7797). According to him, the basket in which the man with naked behind is kneeling is definitely not a beehive, but a hop basket. The hop plant was used to produce beer, and so this man is probably a drunkard. The birds which fly from his behind are identified as swifts (apus apus, German: Turmschwalbe / Spirschwalbe, Dutch: gierzwaluw, French: martinet). In the Middle Ages, this bird had diabolical connotations and could refer to avaritia (among other things). The Bosch drawing seems to point at intemperance and squandering. The birds then refer to the man’s craving for beer, which is being punished by the man on top of the basket who is hitting the naked behind with a lute. The woman to the left could be the drunkard’s wife, and the naked children who are chasing the birds possibly have to catch the money which the man in the basket is blowing into the wind in the shape of birds.

[explicit December 18, 2023]

Meuwissen 2019

“Een nieuwe toeschrijving voor Kop van een oude vrouw” (Daantje Meuwissen) 2019

In this contribution the author presents a number of arguments suggesting that the small fragment Head of an old woman (Rotterdam, Museum Boymans van Beuningen, inv. 2439), formerly attributed to Jheronimus Bosch or others, should be attributed to the Amsterdam painter and printmaker Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen. According to the author, the small panel can be dated around 1517, and it may represent the prophetess Hanna.

[explicit December 10, 2023]

Ilsink 2019b

“De onvromen lopen rond” (Matthijs Ilsink) 2019

The central panel of the Garden of Delights has already inspired many, often contradictory interpretations, but the context for a correct interpretation is offered by Bosch himself, via the wings. In the exterior panels and in the left interior panel we see the divine origin of creation, the right interior panel shows the infernal punishment for those who deny the duty to honour God. The structure of the central panel is dominated by round forms, circles and balls, which is extremely conspicuous in the central carousel of riders encircling a round pond with naked women. The author relates this to Psalm 11 (12), 9 which reads in the Vulgate in circuitu impii ambulant (the impious run around in a circle). This points out that in the central panel of the Garden Bosch painted sinful man and that the triptych functioned as an instrument of conversion. The viewer has to realise that it is not too late to repent and to stop sinning.

[explicit November 26, 2023]