Scholten 2024a
JHERONIMUS BOSCH
EN DE LIEVE-VROUWE-BROEDERSCHAPSKAPEL
De schildersfamilie Van Aken in ’s-Hertogenbosch
(Loes Scholten) 2024
[Nijmeegse Kunsthistorische Studies – XXXIV, Walburgpers, Zutphen, 2024, 275 pages]
This is the commercial edition of the dissertation defended by Loes Scholten at the Radboud University Nijmegen on October 3, 2024. Its promotor was A.M. (Jos) Koldeweij). This dissertation focuses on a broad selection of sources from Bosch’s times and close environment which relate to the context in which his art was produced. The main focus does not lie on Bosch’s works nor on just those archival sources mentioning the artist but on all contemporary written sources that may inform us about Bosch’s living and working conditions, his identity, his network, and his status. In particular Bosch’s relations with the ’s-Hertogenbosch Brotherhood of Our Lady are the object of this context-directed study.
Scholten’s book has two major parts. The first part, limited to chapter 1, offers a survey of Bosch’s living and working environment based on archival sources. The reader learns how contemporary written sources inform us about Bosch’s name (Christian name, surname, alias), about his origin, about his workshops (his father’s workshop and his own), and about his neighbours, relatives, assistants and financial status.
The second part comprises four chapters. Chapter 2 introduces the ’s-Hertogenbosch Brotherhood of Our Lady. Chapter 3 focuses on the late gothic art that was present in the Brotherhood’s chapel (in St. John’s, back then still a church and not yet a cathedral), whereas chapter 4 zooms in on the altar and the altarpiece of this chapel. Here it is noteworthy that Scholten hardly pays any attention to Jos Koldeweij and Bernard Vermet’s 2001 hypothesis that Bosch’s Berlin St John on Patmos panel and Madrid St John the Baptist panel functioned as the upper exterior wings of the altarpiece. Scholten only writes (in translation): These identifications have been subject to debate and the surviving archival sources offer no information that can settle the dispute (p. 196). Chapter 5 takes a closer look at the professional contacts between Bosch and his family and the Brotherhood.
Noteworthy about this last chapter is that Scholten tries to identify two Bosch assistants: Jan Claessoon and Ghysbrecht Hoeyen. On the same page, though, we read words and phrases such as possible, assumption, probably, seem to be and it is not implausible, which asks for due caution. Interesting as well is appendix VI (pp. 224-227) which focuses on two well-known but hardly researched paintings in private collections (David and Abigail and Solomon and Batsheba) that may be copies of wings of the Brotherhood’s altarpiece. The colour photographs of these two paintings (see p. 225) are rare.
Scholten concludes that the sources not only endorse Bosch’s exceptionally creative and inventive qualities, but also characterise him as a highly skilled craftsman who took on not only the most prestigious projects, but also simple painting jobs and designs for applied art. Moreover, it is a fact that Bosch could count on the help of workshop assistants and apprentices.
Loes Scholten is the driving force behind the digital databank ‘BoschDoc’, which brings together (basically) all old written sources, in particular archival sources, that have a close or distant connection with Bosch, transcribing them, translating them into different languages, and commenting on them when necessary. This achievement is already impressive enough to account for Scholten’s Ph.D. title. Her dissertation, too, is a proof of sustained diligence and collects in a conveniently arranged way a large number of (often already known but dispersed) data concerning particular subthemes. Furthermore, Scholten’s writing style is pleasantly clear, although the treated subject matter is mostly rather dry, and although her insights do not imply grand-scale adaptations of the image we have had up to now of Bosch and his world.
Scholten 2024b (Jheronimus Bosch and ‘BoschDoc’) is Scholten’s original dissertation, differing in only two respects from the commercial edition. It offers an introductory text concerning ‘BoschDoc’, and appendix X (pp. 259-343) transcribes passages from the Brotherhood’s proostrekeningen (chaplain’s accounts). In the commercial edition these passages are mentioned (p. 245) but not transcribed. From 2025 on, they will also be accessible online through https://boschdoc.huygens.knaw.nl.
[explicit February 27, 2025 – Eric De Bruyn]
Scholten 2024b
Jheronimus Bosch en ‘BoschDoc’
(Loes Scholten) 2024
[Dissertation, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, defended on October 3, 2024, 375 pages]
This is Loes Scholten’s (very nicely and professionally presented) dissertation which was defended at the Radboud University Nijmegen on October 3, 2024. Its promotor was A.M. (Jos) Koldeweij. Jheronimus Bosch en de Lieve-Vrouwe-broederschapskapel (also 2024) is the commercial edition of this dissertation (see Scholten 2024a). The commercial edition is largely the same as the original dissertation. There are only two major differences. The dissertation has at the beginning an introductory text on the digital database ‘BoschDoc’, which brings together (basically) all old written sources, in particular archival sources, that have a close or distant connection with Bosch. Later in the book appendix X (pp. 259-343) transcribes passages from the proostrekeningen (chaplain’s accounts) of the Brotherhood of Our Lady. The commercial edition refers to these passages (p. 245) but does not reproduce them. From 2025 on, they can be consulted online (https://boschdoc.huygens.knaw.nl). Scholten’s dissertation (with appendix X) can also be consulted online (https://repository.ubn.ru.nl).
[explicit February 27, 2025 – Eric De Bruyn]
Guillaud / Guillaud 1988
JÉRÔME BOSCH – LE JARDIN DES DÉLICES
(Jacqueline and Maurice Guillaud
with the cooperation of Isabel Mateo Gomez) 1988
[Guillaud Editions, Paris-New York, 1988, 294 pages]
The most striking part of this Garden of Delights monograph is the special layout of the department with detail pictures: on India paper, often against a brightly-coloured background, and sometimes accompanied by Maurice Guillaud’s comment lines, apparently with poetical intentions but alas of little interest. Maurice Guillaud also delivered a short, likewise poetical introduction. The two contributions of the Spanish art historian Isabel Mateo Gomez have a more down-to-earth character. Her first contribution (Jérôme Bosch: Le Jardin des Délices, pp. 11-39) focuses on Bosch’s potential sources, on the interpretations of the Garden, on art and culture around 1500, on Bosch’s influence and reception, and finally also on the conservational status and technique of the triptych. Her second contribution (Analyse du triptyque, pp. 255-289) offers a concise analysis of the Garden. Mateo Gomez considers the Garden of Delights a didactical and moralizing work of art, showing influences of alchemical symbolism, which does not imply that Bosch was an alchemist (see page 27).
Mateo Gomez’ approach is very synoptical and inconveniently arranged and as a result also rather superficial and vague. An illustrative example of this can be found on page 37, where she discusses the Garden’s influence on i.a. modern movies: Au cinéma, Buñuel, Pasolini et Bergman, s’en souviennent aussi (in the cinema, Buñuel, Pasolini, and Bergman also remember it). This one sentence without further comment is all the reader gets. Furthermore, Mateo Gomez’ texts sometimes offer information that has meanwhile become superseded or is even incorrect.
[explicit February 18, 2025 – Eric De Bruyn]
Baert 2019
DE UIL IN DE GROT
Gesprekken met beelden, kunstenaars en schrijvers
(Barbara Baert) 2019
[Pelckmans Pro, Kalmthout, 2019, 255 pages]
For this book, Barbara Baert (art historian of the Catholic University Louvain, KU Leuven) invited a number of academics, artists, and art lovers to discuss a work of art of their own choice. Each time, she goes into a dialogue with her guest authors and guides ‘their intuitions to the broader background of the pictorial analysis’. One of these guest authors is the Flemish television and radio presenter Thomas Vanderveken (born 1981). His choice was Jheronimus Bosch’s Garden of Delights triptych, and his personal insights concerning this painting can be read on the pages 164-169.
Vanderveken complains that museum visitors usually take so little time to go deeper into a painting, says that the Garden of Delights tells him what it means to be a human, and wonders whether the triptych is either a warning of or a tribute to the carnal lusts. Under the title De uil in de grot (The owl in the cave, pp. 170-175), Baert reacts to this. First, she elaborately refers to Paul Vandenbroeck’s thesis that the central panel of the Garden represents a ‘grail’ (graal, false love paradise). Concerning the owl in the opening of the Fountain of Paradise (left interior panel), she then points out that in Christianity the owl can refer to Good as well as to Evil and writes some incoherent things about the ‘cave’ theme.
Both Vanderveken’s and Baert’s texts largely boil down to ‘purple prose’ hardly telling anything which is essential. Furthermore, the owl in the left interior panel of the Garden is not sitting inside a cave but in the opening of a fountain. That Vanderveken refers to the Garden using the word ‘canvas’ instead of ‘panel’ can of course be forgiven. That art historian Baert refers to the same painting using the words ‘canvas’ and ‘altarpiece’ (retabel) is less understandable.
[explicit December 28, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]
Forty 2012
HIERONYMUS BOSCH
(Sandra Forty) 2012
[TAJ Books International LLP, Cobham (Surrey, UK), 2012, 96 pages]
Some 82+ illustrations (most of them of rather poor quality), preceded by a short introduction (7 pages only). Most of Bosch’s works represent Biblical scenes, are full of references to medieval folklore and contain a complex symbolism. Bosch was a man of high Christian morality: his paintings warn of living an immoral life and the consequences of such. Art historians used to think that he was a painter who set out to amuse and poke fun at society, but opinion has shifted to the belief that, as a very religious and observant man, he was showing the afterlife as described by the clerics of the late Middle Ages. A superficial and hardly interesting little book.
[explicit December 24, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]
Copplestone 1995
THE LIFE AND WORKS OF HIERONYMUS BOSCH
(Trewin Copplestone) 1995
[Shooting Star Press Inc., New York, 1995, 79 pages]
In spite of the bragging title, a very superficial, popularizing little book that boils down to (short) explanatory captions and (a lot of) pictures. Bosch is considered a moralizing painter with a highly original, still not fully understood pictorial language, but the comments accompanying the illustrations are hardly interesting, the suggested chronology of the paintings is highly debatable, and sporadic blunders are not lacking. The Prado Epiphany is said to date from before 1480 (p. 8), the Vienna Last Judgment triptych is called Bosch’s largest painting (p. 29), and the Garden of Delights triptych might well have been painted for a religious sect that believed in free love (p. 53). The summit of amateurism: the illustration on page 67 is not the original central panel of the Lisbon St Anthony triptych but the mediocre São Paulo copy, represented mirrorwise. To top it all, this illustration also ‘adorns’ the cover.
[explicit December 23, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]
Campbell 2000
THE ESSENTIAL HIERONYMUS BOSCH
(W. John Campbell) 2000
[Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York, 2000, 112 pages]
It is striking how in the first pages of this small, popularizing book the American critic and author W. John Campbell tries to catch the attention of a very broad (primarily young?) public by using trendy words, phrases, and references such as gif photos, big druggie, blah blah, demonic theme park of Hell, sigh, and the television series Seinfeld. One wonders whether this broad public can also be attracted by the rather woolly remarks concerning Bosch’s style in these first pages. Those who are somewhat more familiar with the literature on Bosch will notice that of the five paintings that are being discussed in this context only one can be attributed to Bosch with certainty, which renders Campbell’s remarks concerning style virtually worthless.
This publication shows all the flaws of rather weak popularizing literature on Bosch. Regularly, it tells things that are correct, but everything remains superficial, the core message of a painting is rarely revealed, too often we read nebulous or irrelevant remarks and occasionally a downright blunder. Positive, though, is Campbell’s emphasis on Bosch’s unsuspectedly Catholic message: ‘He never tired of lecturing people on the dangers of their un-Christianlike behavior’ (p. 6), and: ‘Understanding the details of Roman Catholicism is the key to grasping the meaning of these paintings’ (p. 56). More or less correct is also what is said about Bosch’s pictorial language: ‘Cryptic language that piled riddle upon riddle but whose basic meaning, once decoded, proves clear and unambiguous’ (p. 15).
An example of irrelevant information is what is being said about the dry tree in the Rotterdam St Christopher panel: ‘The dead tree with its inhabited, broken pot on the right is far stranger, and may refer to a biblical or local proverb. In Corinthians I: 7-20, people are admonished to remain content with their status in life. In 15th-century proverb lore this translates as “To dwell in one’s calling”. Quite literally, this might caution the local potters to live within their means’ (p. 66). What is the meaning of this?
Examples of pure and simple blunders are the interpretation of the Christ figure in the upper central panel of The Haywain as desperate and of the Joseph figure in the left interior panel of the Prado Epiphany (who is drying the cloths of the Jesus child) as ‘a woman huddled by a fire’ (p. 109). The back sleeve quotes The New York Times: ‘Be an expert in 5 minutes’. A poor joke, as poor as the contents of this booklet.
[explicit December 22, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]
Nies 2023a
HET EINDE DER TIJDEN VOOR OGEN
Het werk van Jheronimus Bosch bezien in het kader van
de apocalyptische eschatologie en de hervormingsbewegingen
(Frans Nies) 2023
[Nijmeegse Kunsthistorische Studies – XXXI, SPA uitgevers-Jheronimus Bosch Art Center, Liederholthuis-’s-Hertogenbosch, 2023, 304 pages]
This is the commercial edition of Frans Nies’ dissertation defended at the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen on April 25, 2023. The advisor (promotor) was Jos Koldeweij. Translation of the Dutch title: Facing the End of Times – The art of Jheronimus Bosch considered in the context of apocalyptic eschatology and the reform movements.
Chapter 1 : The works of Jheronimus Bosch [pp. 14-71]
The character of Bosch’s oeuvre is largely eschatological and often testifies of a fear of the end of times, but a thorough analysis of his works from an apocalyptic-eschatological perspective is still lacking in the literature on Bosch. Nies intends to study in how far the art of Bosch reflects the religious spirit of his era and the fear of the end of times which was part of it. More in particular, he wants to examine in how far the critical rendering of the clergy and the descriptions of the Antichrist can be related to Christian reform movements which would lead to the Reformation. This chapter offers an elaborate status quaestionis of earlier research on those works of Bosch that have an eschatological dimension. These works are…
The author pays a lot of attention to the negative representation of members of the clergy in these works (it should be noted, though, that his identifications of clergymen are sometimes debatable, as he himself admits in some cases). Nies has a profound knowledge of the existing secundary literature concerning these works (although every now and then he focuses too much on interpretations that are clearly unconvincing, such as Sullivan’s 2014 article in which she argues that the Christ figure in the left interior panel of the Garden of Delights is actually the Antichrist: the article gets no less than five pages), and he does not shy away from taking personal stands (for example when he concurs with the authors who consider the so-called ‘Fourth King’ in the Prado Adoration of the Magi the Antichrist or when he writes that Aragonès Estella’s approach of this figure is ‘totally inconvincing’). Nevertheless, the risk remains that for those who have not read this secundary literature themselves the large quantity of often contradictory approaches and opinions becomes confusing after a while.
Bosch’s critical rendering of the clergy can be related to earlier and contemporary reformatory movements that saw the misbehaviour of clergymen as a sign of the approaching end of times. A second indication in this context was the expected arrival of the Antichrist. It is remarkable that De Bruyn’s dissertation (De Bruyn 2001a) is largely ignored in the discussion of the Haywain. This is all the more remarkable because in this dissertation it is argued that the figure with the turban and the fat belly in the central panel is the Antichrist (see pp. 203-204). This interpretation is not even mentioned by Nies, whereas he pays a lot of attention to the Antichrist figure in the art of Bosch.
Chapter 2 : The Antichrist: the origin of the legends [pp. 72-151]
Although it would have been enough to describe the ideas concerning the Antichrist during and before Bosch’s lifetime, the author chooses to present an elaborate history of the Antichrist legends in this chapter. This history (from early Judaism until the sixteenth century) shows that in Bosch’s times the Antichrist concept had become deeply rooted in the collective consciousness. Earlier Bosch literature paid too little attention to this history.
Nies frequently uses the phrase apocalyptic eschatology, which at first seems somewhat problematic (in the eyes of the author himself). The specialized literature dealing with this phrase is said to be confused and unclear (pp. 74-76). Nevertheless, we may assume that ‘eschatology’ means: the ideas about the ‘last things’ (death, Last Judgment, the End of Times). The addition ‘apocalyptic’ then refers to texts which supply (‘reveal’) further information about these ‘last things’. In the first place the Revelations of St John (the last book of the Bible), but there are more textual sources in this context.
Whoever wants to gather information about the Antichrist concept will greatly profit and learn a lot from this chapter, something for which the author deserves the highest praise. It is a downright wonderful performance that is being delivered here based on long and persevering research. However, it does not really result in a pleasant, smooth reading experience. The reader is almost engulfed by a tsunami of consecutive facts and details presented in a very compact and terse manner and supplemented with often very elaborate footnotes that could fill a book of their own. Thus, this chapter almost becomes an encyclopedia, but as such it surely is impressive. Those who are only interested in Bosch, though, will soon find the dry, page-long enumerations a hard nut to crack. When at the end the reform movements (Modern Devotion, Hussites, Luther) are discussed, Bosch does come somewhat closer.
Nies concludes that until the period of the Reformation no clearly defined image of the Antichrist existed, but under the influence of the reform movements the ideas about the Antichrist and the End of Times showed more and more criticism on the Church and even on the pope. The pope was sometimes considered the Antichrist. Thanks to translations in the vernucalar, plays performed in public, and preachers the common people also became familiar with this subject matter around 1500.
Chapter 3 : The development of the Antichrist iconography [pp. 152-207]
What has been said above about chapter 2, is also true for chapter 3, but this time the author offers an elaborate survey of Antichrist iconography, from the early Middle Ages until the beginning of the Reformation.
Chapter 4 : Last Judgment or Apocalypse? [pp. 208-235]
This chapter is the most important one, at least for those who are primarily interested in the art of Bosch. Nies first offers a concise survey of the Last Judgment theme in the visual arts before and during (and at the end of the chapter also after) Bosch’s lifetime, after which he focuses on Bosch’s Last Judgment triptychs in Bruges and Vienna. These triptychs deviate from the traditional representation of the Last Judgment because we do not see the dead rising from their graves and because almost everybody ends up in Hell. According to Nies, these triptychs were mainly inspired by Revelations, chapter 20 where we read that that the ‘elected’ will be the first to rise from their graves (the so-called ‘first resurrection’) and that after 1,000 years the devils will war against the followers of Christ. Only after that will the Last Judgment begin.
The main theme of the central panels of both these triptychs is not the Last Judgment but the Apocalypse, i.e. the period of chaos preceding the Last Judgment when the devils fight against Christ’s followers. The few souls who are being saved in Bosch’s triptychs are the ‘elected’ of the first resurrection going straight to Heaven, and the Bruges left interior panel, showing the Earthly Paradise, represents the purified souls of those who had not sinned too much, probably inspired by the writings of Dionysius the Carthusian. In both left interior panels (Bruges and Vienna) evil (still) plays a role, with which Bosch wanted to express that evil was already present at the start of creation.
Aware of the impending end of times, Bosch (or his commissioner) saw the period immediately before the Last Judgment as an image of his own times and wanted to warn his contemporaries of sinful behaviour, in particular of the clergy’s bad conduct. This criticism of the clergy announces the Reformation, which does not necessarily mean that Bosch belonged to a reform movement. A similar message (warning of sinfulness and advising pious behaviour) can be found in Bosch’s Haywain and Garden of Delights triptychs.
Some comment on this chapter
On page 212 Nies refers to a study of Beat Brenk (1966) arguing that the rising of the dead is often a part of representations of the Last Judgment, but this motif is not an absolutely necessary ‘Elementarprinzip’ of the Last Judgment iconography. Sometimes the rising of the dead was ‘implicitly assumed’. Nies agrees with this approach, and yet the absence of the rising of the dead is for him one of the reasons why Bosch’s Last Judgment triptychs do not show the Last Judgment (see page 221). This cannot but confuse the reader.
The major textual source for the thesis that Bosch’s Last Judgment triptychs do not represent the Last Judgment but the Apocalypse (the period preceding the Last Judgment) is Revelations, chapter 20, verses 4-10. But these verses are very compact and not very clear at all. According to the Biblical text the devils will battle against ‘the camp of the saints and the beloved city’ (Revelations 20, 9: et circumierunt castra sanctorum et civitatem dilectam in the Vulgate), i.e. against the followers of Christ. But in the Bruges and Vienna central panels the devils do not fight against the followers of Christ, they punish and torture the sinners. What Bosch painted does not agree with the text in Revelations.
Nies’ approach of the Bruges left interior panel (representing the Garden of Eden as some sort of ‘waiting room’ before Heaven) offers some valuable insights but is eventually unsatisfactory because a lot more can be said about this theme than is done in his book. This is not the proper place to elaborate on this matter. Let us just point out that the Last Judgment triptych (Valencia, c. 1457) painted by Vrancke van der Stock before Bosch is nót mentioned (whereas elsewhere in the book the reader is avalanched with textual and visual sources). The central panel of this triptych does not represent the rising of the dead either (it shows St Michael weighing the sins and the virtues) and its left interior panel also depicts the Garden of Eden as a waiting room before Heaven.
On page 235 Nies writes (in translation): Even in the paradisiacal scenes in the left panel [i.e. in the Bruges and Vienna left interior panels] he showed that evil, which flourishes and is being punished in the other panels, was present from the beginning of creation. The phrase ‘paradisiacal scenes’ is superficial and even debatable. Because the represented themes are totally different: in Vienna we see the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man, whereas in Bruges we see the Garden of Eden after the Fall as a waiting room before Heaven. Referring to Dionysius the Carthusian, Nies interprets the souls ascending to Heaven in the Bruges left upper panel as the just who have been judged in a positive way at the iudicium particulare (i.e. immediately after their death) and the figures in the Garden of Eden as the souls that have been purified in Purgatory and are now waiting for the Last Judgment (p. 224). This sounds contradictory and confusing.
Nies concludes that Bosch’s view on mankind and on the world was pessimistic and that that is why he focused on the apocalyptic scenes (p. 234). Again, this is debatable. On the next page Nies himself writes (in translation): Convinced that his own time, characterized by catastrophes and the works of the devil, was the end of times preceding the decline of the world, Bosch warned the viewer that within short notice he would be summoned to account for his behaviour during lifetime. Could this not be considered the message of an optimist or at least of someone who wants the best for mankind? To warn of sinful behaviour and to propagate piety are the explicit intentions of many contemporary texts that deal with the Last Judgment.
One of these texts is an anonymous and rhymed Last Judgment treatise (c. 1445-50) that can be found in the so-called Tübingse Sint-Geertrui-handschrift [Tübingse Sint-Geertrui-handschrift ed. 1996: 86-123 (Text 3)]. Middle Dutch texts such as this one nicely represent what people in the Low Countries around 1500 thought about the Last Judgment. The verses 715-727 read (in translation):
'With St Paul I can declare that all the elected will rise up into the sky with Christ, for in his letters we read: when the Lord comes, we who live will be lifted up into the clouds, towards Him. That is why I can also assure you that only the bad ones, who cherish earthly things, will be standing on the earth in the valley mentioned above [i.e. in the Valley of Josaphat] and its surroundings, and their number will be so large that they will need more space than Holland, Sealand and Gelderland together.'
The elected in the sky and the doomed in large numbers down on the earth: does this not nicely agree with what Bosch painted in the Vienna central panel? Would it be possible that Bosch was more inspired by texts such as this one (not necessarily by this one) than by Revelations 20?
All-in all and for now, it does not seem necessary to change the title of Bosch’s Bruges and Vienna Last Judgment triptychs into Apocalypse triptychs.
Chapter 5 : The end of times in religious drama [pp. 236-267]
This chapter offers an overview of medieval religious drama (including the mystery plays) from the tenth until the sixteenth century and intends to show that through this art form the apocalyptic-eschatological ideas could reach broad layers of the population and thus became part of the collective consciousness. Also the authors and performers of religious plays considered the end of times an urgent and current theme. The critical attitude toward the clergy is largely absent, though, probably because these plays were supervised by clerical and worldly authorities. Again, this chapter offers a lot of interesting information about the subject it deals with, but the works of Bosch do not play a role in it.
Chapter 6 : Conclusion [pp. 268-282]
In two languages (Dutch and English) Nies summarizes the major conclusions of his study.
Conclusion
Het einde der tijden voor ogen is an instructive and very sound dissertation that totally justifies Nies’ doctoral promotion. In an exemplary and convenient way, the author has brought together a large number of textual and visual facts concerning the End of Times, the Antichrist, and the Last Judgment, and he does not shy away from defending personal views with the intention to open up new horizons concerning the art of Bosch. However, not everyone will concur on his major point of view, i.e. that Bosch did not paint Last Judgments but Apocalypses.
Let us also point out that the book has an extremely attractive layout with some striking technical gimmicks. Something for which Nies, who according to the ‘Afterword’ has quite some experience with graphical design, was personally responsible. However, the idea to print the footnotes in small letters and in a light-blue colour was less rewarding: under a particular incidence of light they are almost illegible. Deserving praise, though, is Nies’ clear and accessible writing style which stands out positively against the supererudite, highly academical way of arguing of some other recent Bosch authors.
Finally, it can alo be pointed out that Nies, when dealing with the art of Bosch, uncritically adopts the insights of the BRCP team (see BRCP 2016a), which is perhaps not surprising taking into account who his supervisor was. One example confirming this, is the stubborn choice of still calling the protagonists of the Rotterdam tondo and of the exterior wings of the Haywain ‘wayfarers’ instead of ‘pedlars’. Another even more striking example is when the Bruges Last Judgment is attributed to ‘Jheronimus Bosch’, whereas the Vienna Last Judgment is attributed to ‘Jheronimus Bosch ánd workshop’.
[explicit December 8, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]
Devitini Dufour 1998
BOSCH
Follia, vizi e virtù: alle deriva tra realtà e fantasia
(Alessia Devitini Dufour) 1998
[Leonardo Arte, Milan, 1998]
[French translation: Alessia Devitini Dufour, Bosch, Art-poche – 2, Éditions de la Martinière, Paris, 1999, 143 pages]
[Dutch translation: Alessia Devitini Dufour, Bosch, Knack kunstreeks, Roularta Books, Roeselare, 2004, 143 pages]
This publication belongs to a popularizing pocket series about painters. Each volume consists of three alternating sections: life and work of the artist, the cultural-historical context, and an analysis of the major works. It would be wrong to expect much from all this: the book has many (small) illustrations and little text, basically it all boils down to pictures with subtitles. Furthermore, its structure is very messy and confused, and the comment is always superficial and often of a dubious quality.
The funnel on the head of the quack in the Madrid Cutting of the Stone panel is called a symbol of wisdom. The scenes in the lower central panel of the Haywain triptych are interpreted as ‘scenes from the country life’. The author is favourably disposed towards Fraenger’s foolish theories, and Bosch is called a Fleming. These few examples clearly show that the scholarly value of this book is negligible. The layout did get a lot of attention, though.
The author’s Italian roots lead to the momentary highlighting of a fresco in an abbey near Milan, attributed by some to Bosch (as the photos on page 59 show: completely unjustified), and to the unfounded assertion that Bosch and Leonardo da Vinci met each other in Milan. In short, an utterly unimportant and amateurish little monograph,
[explicit December 26, 2006 – Eric De Bruyn]
Van Schendel 1948
DE HOLLANDSCHE SCHILDERKUNST
VAN JEROEN BOSCH TOT REMBRANDT
Keuze van Meesterwerken uit de Nederlandsche Musea
(A. van Schendel) 1948
[Editions de la Connaissance, Brussels, 1948, no pagination]
[not mentioned in Gibson 1983]
115 black-and-white illustrations of paintings in Dutch museums, with a short introduction by A. van Schendel, back then curator of the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum. Bosch’s St Christopher panel and Pedlar tondo, both in the Rotterdam Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, are reproduced. One paragraph of the introduction is spent on Bosch. In translation it reads…
'At the turn of the century, a number of artists appear who rise above the crowd and who cannot be reckoned either exclusively Flemish or exclusively Dutch. Hieronymus Bosch combines the decorative sensitivity of the South with the freshness of a spontaneous technique of the North, but the boldness of his vision is unique and belongs only to him. He creates his own world, a bedazzling dream, where phantasy and truth are inextricably interwoven, where religious compositions and allegories are surrounded by fanciful parades of half-human, half-bestial monsters. This inexhaustible finder of bizarre but meaningful forms evolved out of the rich vein of narrators which has nourished the complete Middle Ages and which will revive once more through Bruegel the Elder. Whether his eye explores the immeasurably small or sees heavenly empires, the creations of his imagination always show a visionary power of expression.'
[explicit November 17, 2024 – Eric De Bruyn]
