High Renaissance and Mannerism

Hieronymus Bosch 

Bosch is a well-known Dutch 15th century artist, known for his surrealistic depictions of scenes derived from religious beliefs. Although little is known about his life, we know that he was born sometime between 1450–1456 and that his birth name was Jheronimus Van Aken. Bosch was very well-known throughout Europe in his lifetime. He is also believed to have been a well-educated man and relatively affluent. And after his death, his art was widely imitated and copied. He received many commissions relating to religious themes while staying in Hertogenbosch, a city located in North Brabant, Netherlands. His early work was very conventional, and the unusual style and biblical references developed later. As his city belonged to the Roman Empire, we can speculate that he might have had access to classical Roman art and would have been somewhat influenced by the art of the Renaissance.  

The Garden of Earthly Delights, oil on canvas, 1515 
Adoration of the Magi, oil on panel, 1500 
The Hermit Saints, oil on panel, 1493
The Last Judgement, oil on wood, 1482 
Hieronymus Bosch- The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things.JPG
The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things, oil on wood, 1500 

I gravitate towards the surrealistic and sinister style Bosch beautifully achieves. No other artist from that period (from what I’ve seen) consistently created non-traditional images throughout every painting. Although only twenty-five paintings and eight drawings remain, his creative imagery and his use of earthy, warm-toned colours really attracted me to his paintings. An interesting thing I noticed is that he creates many triptych paintings and effectively use this layout to communicate a story. Bosch was successful with the Habsburgs, who found his work desirable and collected it. Therefore, today his masterworks can be found in Madrid and Vienna. 

Image Sources: 

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55726455e4b0c6a58c6e9294/1479498951283-IP3KQBESMH79CDKFE0DG/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kJuI8p5FQJ1Eq-llLbNfaL4UqsxRUqqbr1mOJYKfIPR7LoDQ9mXPOjoJoqy81S2I8N_N4V1vUb5AoIIIbLZhVYxCRW4BPu10St3TBAUQYVKcVwiMXy0_LgceVXG1CKh67v8u1s0pBIJf9445W-KB9EEl1zKMAtdN8yEjqLo53gl0/image-asset.jpeg

https://content3.cdnprado.net/imagenes/Documentos/imgsem/66/6667/666788cc-c522-421b-83f0-5ad84b9377f7/af21a6b1-9aa6-4aad-8646-b766eafa1cb5.jpg

https://www.wga.hu/art/b/bosch/6venice/hermit.jpg

https://en.opisanie-kartin.com/images/1/image245.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/Hieronymus_Bosch-_The_Seven_Deadly_Sins_and_the_Four_Last_Things.JPG/2560px-Hieronymus_Bosch-_The_Seven_Deadly_Sins_and_the_Four_Last_Things.JPG

One thought on “High Renaissance and Mannerism

  1. Megan,

    Nice work on Bosch! There are a number of students that have chosen him for this blog which tells me that he resonates with a lot of you. Your research is sound, the writing pretty decent (a few punctuation issues to look at) and I like that you brought in your personal feelings and insights to what you discovered. That is what I’m ultimately looking for here.

    Jeff

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