Temptation of Saint Anthony
ca. 1490
Oil on panel, 73 × 52.5 cm
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
An interesting counter-reaction to that of the monk is the statement by Francesco Pacheco – the teacher and father-in-law of Velasquez – as written sometime later, in 1649: “There are nough documents speaking of the superior and more difficult things, which are the personages, if one finds time for such pleasures, which were always disdained by the great masters – nevertheless some seek these pleasures:
Saint Christopher
ca. 1490
Oil on panel, 113 × 72 cm
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
that is the case for the ingenious ideas of Hieronymus Bosch with the diversity of forms that he gave to his demons, in the invention of which our King Philip II found so much pleasure, which is proved by the great number of them he accumulated. But Father Siguença praises them excessively, making of these fantasies mysteries that we would not recommend to our painters. And we pass on to more agreeable subjects of painting…”
Ecce Homo
ca. 1490
Oil and gold on panel, 52.1 × 54 cm
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
Pacheco was a Spanish painter and art theorist of the artistic period between Mannerism and Baroque. He had rejected the manneristic delight in mere form and was turning toward an interest in naturalistic illusionism.
From either point of view he would have found Bosch’s work unacceptable. Even though Pacheco’s concern was with Bosch as an artist, he passed him off as an oddity, and this reputation clung round the painter for two and a half centuries to come.
Christ Mocked also called The Crowning with Thorns
ca. 1490–1500
Oil on oak panel, 73.8 × 59 cm
The National Gallery, London
During this period there was little attention given by scholars to Northern art at all; when it was considered, Bosch was obscured by the great Netherlandish painters ranging from Van Eyck to Brueghel. It was not until the end of the last century that any respectable scholarship was brought to bear upon the painter.
The Pedlar
1490–1505
Oil on panel, 71 × 70.6 cm
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Perhaps this was a consequence of the realistic impulse that entered mid-nineteenth-century painting. Historians began to look for precursors to this realism in the past. They turned again to an interest in Northern art and in reemphasising Brueghel, “discovered” Bosch.
Such historians as Ebeling and Mosman sorted through the aged registers of his native town ‘s-Hertogenbosch, a Dutch town near the German border, but the result was disappointing.
The Ship of Fools
After 1491
Oil on panel, 58 × 33 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris
The date of Bosch’s death was discovered in a registry of names and armorial bearings – listed as 1516.
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.
Allegory of Intemperance
ca. 1495–1500
Oil on panel, 35.9 × 31.4 cm
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
There are a few references to Bosch between these dates in the archives of the Brotherhood of Our Lady at ‘s-Hertogenbosch.
Several items referred to his having been paid various sums for works commissioned of him. None of this was very informative about essential details of Bosch’s life, save that, since he was referred to once as “illustrious painter”, he was obviously held in repute as an artist by his fellows.
Owl’s Nest
Pen and bistre, 14 × 19.6 cm
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
There is no reason to think, from these references at least, that his friends considered Bosch either a wizard or a madman. As to his ancestry, since Bosch’s name often bore the suffix Van Aken, it was believed that his forebears were from Aachen, just over the Dutch-German border. Five Van Akens were mentioned in the town records before the time of Hieronymus.
Singers in an Egg
Oil on panel, 108.5 × 126.5 cm
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille
One, a teacher named Jan Van Aken, was noted in the archives of ‘s-Hertogenbosch’s Cathedral of Saint John in references covering several years (1423–1434).
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