The Renaissance in Europe: Hieronymus Bosch

The renaissance in Europe: painting 17^th and 18^th centuries

 Notes

• ·      1400’s to the early 1600’s
• ·      This era involved a lot of science, literature and visual arts.
• ·      Considered as a bridge from medieval to modern times.
• · Step up in culture- artists became famous for their art for the first time.
• ·      Humanism- central to the renaissance
• ·      It started in Florence, Italy because there was more money to create luxury goods.
• ·      Sponsored by wealthy people (the Church of Rome)
• ·      The artists that designed the cathedral created the first drawings using depth and prospective properly.
• ·      Trumpe le oil- super realistic drawings that look 3D
• ·      Later on the Catholic Church didn’t allow any naked bodies in the paintings where as this was accepted in the early years of the renaissance.
• ·      The first use of studio lighting was in the painting ‘the dream of Constantine’ by Piero Pella Francesa (1452-1466) 
• ·      Extreme perspective used for the first time in ‘The dead Christ’ by Mantegna.
• ·      Photo realistic painting started and wealthy people started to get portraits of themselves painted.

Artists

• ·      Artists started to fall out with the church so started to paint more mythical and symbolic paintings.
• ·      ‘The bonfire of the vanities’ (1487)- all items of decadence and vanity were confiscated and burnt a lot of paintings were burnt.
• ·      Leonardo da Vinci created a lot of anatomy studies.
• ·      Michelangelo Buonarotti was a sculptor but he became more famous for his paintings in the Sistine chapel

European painting beyond Italy

•    Because of trade routes more countries started using oil paints- created more detailed images

• Hieronymus Bosch began painting and created surrealism  (Dali was inspired massively by Bosch)

 The Reformation

• ·      Protestants vs. Catholics – protestants got fed up of the indulgence and corruption of the Catholic church.
• ·      Education was becoming more prevalent and books were becoming more affordable.

China

• ·      Printing started 1287
• ·      Wood block printing came to Europe
• ·      Moveable type worked well in Europe but not in china
• ·      Guttenberg printing press
• ·      Innervation in technology but not in style – a lot of detailed printing was still used in books.
• ·      Albrecht Durer created a lot of wood cut images.
• ·      Literature spread rapidly because of printing.

 Research task

Choose one of the following:-

1. Look at images that depict wealth, property   and class from the17th. And 18^th. Centuries.
2. Compare the paintings of Vermeer and Rembrandt, particularly relating to their methods of lighting in their subjects.
3.   Compare the  18^th. Century satirical printed illustrations of William Hogarth and James Gillray.

 I chose to research Hieronymus Bosch for this topic.

Not much is known of Hieronymus Bosch’s early life although it is known that he changed his name from Jeroen Van Aken to Hieronymus Bosch in tribute of his home town. It is thought that he was trained by his farther who was also an artist.[1]

Hieronymus Bosch was a very successful painter during the renaissance and he is most known for creating weird images so weird in fact that there is speculation about weather they were created under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs[2]. When examined closely it is clear the subject matter in his most famous work ‘The garden of earthly delights’ (figure 1) is not at all stereotypical of the period showing things such as people with plants growing out of them. The subjects of his paintings could also be described as gothic as they were pretty dark. Bosch’s work has been analysed and looked at alongside Freud’s theories many times to try and find a deeper meaning but a conclusion has never been found as explained in this quote. 

“Modern psychology may explain the appeal Bosch’s pictures have for us, but it cannot explain the meaning they had for Bosch and his contemporaries. Likewise, it is doubtful that modern psychoanalysis can help us to understand the mental process by which Bosch developed his enigmatic forms.”[3]  

(Figure 1)- The Garden of Earthly Delights, between 1480 and 1505, oil on panel

All of Bosch’s paintings have very strong symbolic messages. At a first glance his pieces look quite religious and heavenly, but at closer inspection it is clear that the painting is representing the exact opposite of heaven. The demonic evil creatures can be found within the random strange scenarios depicted in his images seen in figure 2.

Hieronymus Bosch became extremely popular for his large landscapes featuring fantastic, unearthly beasts and nightmarish visions representing the sins of human race and the torments of hell[4]

(Figure 2) The triumph of death

 Bosch was the creator of the surrealist genre and in later years artists such as Salvador Dali have taken great inspiration from his work and ideas. Dali is the artist that made the surrealist genre famous and a lot of people think that he created it. Although the two artists were around 450 years apart they were surprisingly similar even down to the tonal qualities.

My body was absent from my personality, so to speak, and I felt myself turning into one of those fantastic figures of Hieronymus Bosch, of whom Philip II was so passionately fond of[5]

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[1] S Hodge, Art: Everything you need to know about the greatest artists and their works, Quercus (6 Feb 2014)

[2] W Bosing, The complete paintings Bosch, Taschen, 2004, p.8

[3] W Bosing, The complete paintings Bosch, Taschen, 2004, p.9

[4] S Hodge, Art: Everything you need to know about the greatest artists and their works, Quercus (6 Feb 2014)

[5]S Dali, The secret life of Salvador Dali, 1993.p 199