Fierens 1947
Le fantastique dans l’art flamand (Paul Fierens) 1947
[Editions du Cercle d’Art, Brussels, 1947 (about Bosch: pp. 38-57)]
[Also mentioned in Gibson 1983: 137-138 (G18)]
When talking about Bosch Fierens coins the new phrase ‘phantasmic realism’. By this he means that the different parts of Bosch’s original creations are very close to reality, but their phantasmic aspect lies in the unusual combination of those parts.
Bosch as a phenomenon did not come out of the blue: a ‘phantasmic’ tradition (miniatures, church sculptures…) already existed in the Netherlands and in his works Bosch expresses the religious fears and the social turmoil of his times. Bosch is not an ‘entertainer’: his art is didactic, is aimed at teaching and rebuking, he paints with religious and social intentions. He does this by painting man’s ugliness, sinfulness and atrocity. The struggle of the mind and of belief against the sensuality and lability of the earthly delights and passions: that is what Bosch’s moral is all about.
[explicit]
