Hieronymus Bosch
Bosch is one of the most popular and intriguing painters known to history - A true master of symbolism and genre painting… It’s obvious that he possessed extraordinary mind - rich in ideas, he created a world full of amazing creatures and fantastic characters. That’s what makes him different from other contemporary painters. For before Bosch neither of them ever tried to incorporate enigmatic, mysterious, characters.Theme of pain and sorrow deluge much of Busch’s works. It seems that hell and punishment was his beloved topic. But despite original and realistic expression of all those tournaments, he includes vast number of symbols. Actually this is what I like most about him – Rather then painting useless, serene Gothic images, he tracks down all the problems of his society and under the thick level of complex symbolism expresses them in a simple relationship of sin and punishment.
I think most important and interesting thing to discuss about Bosch are his motives… What was he really trying to tell us? And what factor caused him to paint those odd scenes? For sure there had to be some catalyst, which triggered his imagination towards drawing the flying fish, the monk with a rat head or even madman with tulip grown on his head.
In understanding Bosch, important role plays historical setting. It’s difficult to analyze all those symbols, but history itself gives us various clues in deciphering Bosch’s puzzles! For example we know that church wasn’t respected at those times. This can explain appearance of its criticism, such as hog headed monk, which probably symbolizes the greedy monks who corrupted holy name of the church. Black plague wiped out thousands of people in Europe; this could also be some kind of psychological booster that leaded Bosch towards expressing all that pain and sorrow he encountered in his country. Besides, his drawings are like a warning for humanity. With his popular painting “Garden of Earthly Delights”, he asserts that if his contemporaries will not change their way of life, then their only fate is fire of hell.
I think the fact that he criticized common people and their behavior leads us to Bosch’s principal goal. His main motivation was a social critique. I guess he wasn’t an innovator in this discipline, but the way he expressed his protest against established disorder is truly outstanding!
Generally, art was always the way of expressing critique, but painting isn’t the only mean of doing so. For example, Literature is also full of interesting masterpieces that criticize established social structure or the way of certain people live. That’s why I think art is related with literature in its essence, for both have similar purposes – In this case I must mention Dante’s Inferno. Like Bosch, he also tried to criticize people for an inappropriate way of their lives.