Hieronymus Bosch - Master of the Grotesque - Biography

The nightmarish visions of hell painted by Hieronymus Bosch over 500 years ago are surely some of the most familiar creations of Renaissance art. But what do we know about the man who created these remarkable images? Welcome to Insane History, I'm Graeme Yorston, and today I'm exploring the life and work of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. To try and find out why he painted such strange and outlandish images and became known as the master of the grotesque. I normally begin my biographical journeys by looking into a subject's family and their early years. But in the case of Hieronymus Bosch, there is very little to go on. He was born Hieronymus van Aken sometime around 1450, and he spent most of his life in the town of Sertogenbosch, later becoming known by the shortened version of the town's name, Den Bosch, meaning the forest. Although the city of Sertogenbosch is now in the Netherlands, at the time of Bosch's birth it was in the Duchy of Brabant, ruled by the Dukes of Burgundy. But on the death of the Duchess Mary in 1482, it passed to her husband, Maximilian I, Archduke of Austria and later Holy Roman Emperor, setting up a French-Hapsburg rivalry over the that would endure for centuries and spark countless European wars. We know his grandfather, Jan van Aken, was a painter and had five sons, four of whom also became painters. And we know Hieronymus had two brothers and a sister, but nothing about his early life, where he learned to paint, who his teachers were, or where he might have travelled to. In 1463 there was a catastrophic fire in the town, which was likely witnessed by the 13-year-old Hieronymus. It destroyed 4,000 houses and probably took many lives as well. And it has been suggested that this event may have had a lasting impact on his view of the world as a hostile place, full of dangers and terrible ways to die. Sometime around 1480, Bosch married, the daughter of wealthy pharmacists, several years his senior. Alchemical apparatus often appears in Bosch's work, and it is possible that he may have become familiar with such equipment through his wife's family. The couple moved to the town of Oierschot, 15 miles south, where his wife inherited a house and land, but they had no children. His wife's affluence meant he was not under pressure to conform to the wishes of conservative patrons, leaving him freer than his contemporaries to paint what he wanted and how he wanted. But he was no iconoclastic rebel. His paintings were popular in his lifetime, and he received commissions from his hometown and wealthy patrons, including Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy, and Henry III of Nassau. In his thirties, he was invited to join the Brotherhood of Our Lady, a highly respected fraternity of 40 or so wealthy and respectable citizens of Sertogenbosch, and 7,000 other members from around Europe, and he painted a number of works for the Brotherhood's chapel. He seems to have enjoyed good health, and he made it into his sixties, but an entry in the accounts for the Brotherhood of Our Lady records his death in 1516, and a funeral mass in his memory was held in the Cathedral Church of St John later in the year. But that's about it. We don't know anything about his personality, his politics, his religious beliefs, or anything he may have said about his paintings. But that certainly hasn't stopped people speculating. And for historical context, we need to remember that although Bosch lived his entire life before the Reformation really kicked off, it was a period of growing dissatisfaction with the power and practices of the established church in Rome. And just a year after Bosch's death, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, 350 miles away, setting in motion the cataclysmic events of the Protestant Reformation that transformed Europe. Bosch generally painted in oil on oak panels, and his style was different to many of his early Netherlandish contemporaries, who tried to achieve a smooth finish, showing no brushstrokes, to suggest their paintings were some kind of divine creation, rather than the works of men. In contrast, Bosch left his work with a rough surface, so-called impasto painting, from the Italian word for paste, from which we also get pasta. Within his own lifetime, his work was collected in the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, and widely copied, especially his Visions of Hell grotesques. And this has made identifying which Bosch-style paintings are truly by the man himself quite a challenge, made even more difficult by many putative works bearing fake signatures. Scholarship and dendro chronological dating of the oak panels has reduced the number of confirmed works to only 25 paintings and eight drawings, with around another six paintings attributed to his workshop. His most acclaimed works are the triptych altarpieces. He produced at least 16 of these, eight of which survive fully intact, and another five surviving in fragments. The most famous triptych is the seven feet high, 12 feet wide Garden of Earthly Delights. The rather drab exterior panels show the world on the third day of creation, after the appearance of plant life, but before any animals or people. These open to reveal a colourful, cautionary tale. In the left-hand panel, Eve is blessed by God and presented to Adam in the Garden of Eden. In the right-hand panel, the wicked suffer their punishments for leading sinful lives, being prodded, spiked, tormented, devoured, or thrown into flames by all manner of fantastical beasts. But it is the largest central panel that has been debated the most. It is a landscape populated by exotic animals, giant birds, oversized strawberries, and dozens of frolicking naked people. They all seem to be having a good time, as long as you like having flowers coming out of your bottom. There is no pain, no sickness, no old age, but also no children, and this panel has been interpreted as showing an unspoilt and pre-moral existence, a time of innocence, a life lived without consequence. Apart from the pointing man in the bottom right-hand corner, the only clothed figure, is he the commissioner of the work? Bosch himself? Saint John the Baptist? All have been suggested, as has Niccolò Machiavelli, to whom he has a passing resemblance. But this seems unlikely to me, as Machiavelli's most famous work, The Prince, wasn't published until many years after Bosch's death. His Temptations of Saint Antony Triptych also features bizarre hybrid and anthropomorphised creatures doing their darndest to draw Saint Antony from his virtuous path. Most of Bosch's paintings have religious themes, but he also addressed the secular world in his art. The Ship of Fools is a depiction of a popular allegorical poem written by Sebastian Brandt, a professor of law at the University of Basel, and published in Switzerland in 1494. Das Nagenschiff, or the Ship of Fools, is another cautionary tale. This one, about the voyage of a ship steered by fools, going to the fool's paradise of Narragonia, following Saint Drobian, the patron saint of vulgar and coarse people. The author wittily lambasts the weaknesses and vices of his time, and the book was widely circulated and translated into different languages. It was interpreted as a thinly veiled commentary on the perceived corruption and abuses of power of the ruling classes and Catholic Church. The idea of the Ship of Fools goes back further, however, to the Greek philosopher Plato, who illustrates the dangers of a political system not based on expertise and reason, where those who are loud and confident but ignorant seize control of a ship, leading to violence, chaos and destruction. I know some of you are going to make comments about who this reminds you of, but I try to avoid politics, so I'm saying nothing. Another of Bosch's secular paintings, Extracting the Stone of Madness, also known as Cutting the Stone, or the Cure of Folly, is a depiction of a surgeon, or fake surgeon, wearing a ridiculous funnel hat, removing the stone of madness from a patient's head by cutting into his skull. His assistant is a monk tightly holding a tankard, while a bored-looking woman with a book balanced on her head looks on. The inscription in Middle Dutch translates to, Master, cut the stone out fast, my name is Lubbert Das. Lubbert being a comical or foolish character in Dutch literature. Several other artists created their own versions of the Stone of Folly, but Bosch was the first, and his painting was seen as a symbol of both the foolishness of men, who were taken in by improbable and false promises, and the dishonesty of quack doctors, and perhaps real doctors as well, in exploiting the gullible. With so few facts to go on, there's been wild speculation about the It has been suggested that he was part of some heretical sect, such as the Cathars, the Adamites, or the Brethren of the Free Spirit, who took off their clothes during secret rituals, believing that perfection could only be achieved by a return to the innocent love of Adam and Eve. You can even find theories that Bosch was an alien from the galactic depths, who simply described in his paintings what he saw while travelling across the universe. Fascinating if you like this kind of thing, but personally I'm a little more sceptical. Slightly more down to earth are the parallels that have been drawn between Bosch's work and the writings of the humanist philosopher and fierce critic of the moral corruption of society, Erasmus of Rotterdam. This seems a more plausible explanation of Bosch's recurring themes of temptation, sin and punishment, and it's possible that Bosch may have met Erasmus as he attended a Some have suggested that Bosch's production line of bizarre creatures and naked people represents nothing more than a commercially minded artist cashing in on the titillating and amusing images that have entertained humanity since the stone age. The extent to which other artists before him painted grotesque and tormenting demons is debatable. But whether by coincidence or triggered by his work, there was certainly a demand for what was known as or curiously grotesque images after Bosch created his paintings. And by 1560, just 40 or so years after his death, one of the first known writers about Bosch, the Spanish art historian Felipe de Guevara, wrote that Bosch was regarded merely as the inventor of monsters and chimeras. And Dutch historian Marcus van Wernawijk, writing a few years later, called him Some have proposed that his paintings are full of cleverly disguised biblical references, puns and folkloric symbols, even political commentary and criticism of Maximilian I. Others have suggested that his paintings can be interpreted as warnings about the dangers of climate change. And in 2016, Leonardo DiCaprio presented the Pope with a book of Bosch's work and encouraged him to take a look and think about the issue. More recently, however, Bosch's work has been viewed as simply reflecting the accepted religious views of his time, and his depictions of a sinful humanity condemned to eternal punishment are consistent with the late medieval worldview of heaven and hell, even if his imagined hell is far more vivid than his contemporaries. It has been suggested that Bosch's imagination may have been artificially boosted by or periods of psychosis caused by ergotism, poisoning by a substance produced by a fungal infection of rye, which caused outbreaks of what was known as St Anthony's fire in medieval times. Others have gone further and asserted that Bosch was mad. This seems to have begun with George Stanley's 1855 study of Dutch and Flemish painters, in which he writes There is neither wit nor humour nor playfulness of imagination exhibited in these compositions. They seem to be the hallucinations of one suffering the effects of a distempered brain. Stanley offers no suggestions as to the nature of his distemper, although others have wondered about schizophrenia. Without providing any supportive evidence whatsoever. Another suggestion is that Bosch may have had Charles Bonnet syndrome, a condition in which mainly older adults with failing eyesight have episodes of vivid visual hallucinations. It is named after Swiss philosopher Charles Bonnet, who in 1760 described the phenomenon in his 90-year-old grandfather, who was suffering from cataracts. His grandfather recognised that what he was seeing were not actually there, but saw them nonetheless. It was important in the understanding of mental illness, as for the first time it was recognised that people could have abnormal perceptual experiences, hallucinations, while retaining insight and not being considered mad. People with Charles Bonnet syndrome do sometimes report objects being much smaller or larger than normal, like Bosch's strawberries. But I think this is unlikely as an explanation, as the key issue is that they occur in people with visual impairments. And if his vision had been deteriorating, Bosch would not have been able to paint anything at all. As you would expect for an artist who has created sexually charged imagery, there have been psychoanalytic interpretations of his work. Erika Fromm, no relation to Erich Fromm, had this to say about the paintings of Bosch in 1969. One recognises in them the tragedy of a homosexual, and perhaps also of an impotent man who dreamt and fantasised endlessly about all kinds of sexual pleasures, but whose punitive superego, severe castration fear and sadomasochistic pre-genital fixation most likely prevented him from having normal lusty sexual relationships. British psychiatrist R.E. Hempel went further and felt able to pronounce confidently on Bosch's personality. He was withdrawn and inward-looking, unaware of the warmth of love, unmoved by human pleasures and disappointments, unconcerned with children. He was introspective, engrossed with mystical philosophy and magic. He was almost certainly an alchemist. He believed implicitly in witchcraft, and he was a doubtful Christian. He was a schizoid personality. Deliberately or compulsively, he painted documentaries of the supernatural world and the devil's campaign. Regular viewers of the channel will know about my lack of enthusiasm for psychoanalytic interpretations. And it seems to me that these, like so many others, are simply speculation, dressed up in fancy language, reflecting the preoccupations of the therapist, rather than having anything to do with Bosch. So, do I think we can make a modern mental health diagnosis for Hieronymus Bosch? Absolutely not. All we can say is that if he witnessed a terrible fire in his hometown as a teenager, he would have been at increased risk of post-traumatic stress disorder. But we just don't know. And he may be just someone with an incredible imagination. There is no doubt that in the 21st century, the number of interpretations of Bosch's work has expanded exponentially, reflecting the post-modern world, in which everybody's opinion is as valid as the next person's, whether they are an expert with a lifetime scholarship, or are simply talking with a metaphorical bunch of flowers coming from where the sun doesn't shine. Thank you for watching. I hope you found this short journey into the life of Hieronymus Bosch interesting. If so, you might enjoy my videos on Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Egon Schiele, Henry Fuseli, Francisco Goya, Edvard Munch, Suzanne Valadon, Andy Warhol, Richard Dadd, who murdered his father, and Louis Wayne. All had fascinating lives, and we know a lot more about them than we do about the elusive Dutchman. If you want to see his work, Madrid is the place to go. In the 16th century, Philip II of Spain bought several of Bosch's paintings, which are now in the Prado Museum. And the rest of the world has had to make do with whatever was left over. As always, I'd love to hear your views on this video, and any suggestions for future topics you may have. But apart from that, I'll say goodbye for now, and I hope to see you again soon. Goodbye.