Mettra 1976
Jérôme Bosch (Claude Mettra) 1976
[Henri Scrépel, Paris, 1976, 137 pages]
[Dutch translation: Claude Mettra, Jeroen Bosch. Icob, Alphen aan den Rijn, 1980, 137 pages]
[Also mentioned in Gibson 1983: 10 (A44)]
This French art historian clearly follows in Fraenger’s footsteps. His poetical mumbo jumbo, peppered with alchemical vocabulary, leads to a nice sentence every now and then (such as when he writes that Bosch’s work takes us back to that part in us which is connected with the ocean), but it does not generate a better understanding of the painter.
It is rather cynical then that the jacket of the Dutch translation states that Bosch’s paintings have sometimes produced ‘mere twaddle of mystery-loving art historians who make the Bosch riddle even bigger than it already is’.
[explicit]
