The Renaissance in Europe

Task:

Research an artist from the Renaissance in Europe.

The artist I chose to focus my research on in this topic is Hieronymus Bosch.

Bosch's life is a bit ambigious because there were no clear records of his birth, although his death was confirmed in 1516 in a registry of names from his hometown of Hertogenbosch, a small town near the Dutch/ German border. However he is assumed to have been born around 1450 because of a portrait by an anonymous artist in red and black chalk.

"His birth date was not found, but because his portrait, which was discovered in the Arras Codex, showed a man of about sixty, his birth was assumed to have been around 1450. There are a few references to Bosch between these dates in the archives of the Brotherhood of Our Lady's at Hertogenbosch." 1

Figure 1, Red and black chalk portrait of Bosch

His paintings throughout his life were oddities of the period as they focused around themes of death, apocalypse and mortal sin. The works were also often in triptych format, a series of three paintings together to make one whole. This made it easier to tell the 'story' of his paintings, or rather separate the different elements of the images such as Paradise, The Garden and Hell in his painting 'The Garden of Earthly Delights'.

Figure 2, The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronymus Bosch, 1503-1504

 Bosch's paintings also featured many surreal elements, and monsters and people that were personifications of evil and/or sin, and would paint them with such conviction and skill it was possible to believe in them. This in turn influenced many future artists, especially ones such as Salvador Dali within the 20th century.

"He would make his creatures, their activities, and their environments as wierd and unwordly as possible, yet, the painter would make these things believeable by rendering them with all of the technical mastery an artist would ordinarily use to produce the illusion of the natural world." 2

List of Illustrations

Figure 1 Hieronymus Bosch, Anonymous, unknown, Grange Books, 2005, p. 18
Figure 2 The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronymus Bosch, 1503-1504, Grange Books, 2005, p. 26

References

[1] Not Stated, Hieronymus Bosch, Grange Books, 2005, p. 18
[2] Not Stated, Hieronymus Bosch, Grange Books, 2005, p.72

Bibliography

Not Stated, Hieronymus Bosch, (2005), Grange Books, London