During the realistic artistic climate of the Late Gothic and Early Renaissance, the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516) was more than an anomaly. Bosch's paintings are filled with graphic scenes of fantastical creatures succumbing to all manner of human desires, imagination, and anxiety. One of his greatest inventions was the transfer of iconic and scenic depictions, known as drolleries, from the margins of illuminated manuscripts to large panel paintings. Alongside traditional human and beast hybrids, such as centaurs, and mythical creatures like unicorns, devils, dragons, and griffins, we also encounter countless mixed creatures freely invented by the artist. Many secondary scenes depict proverbs and expressions of Bosch's time. For example, in the triptych of The Temptation of St. Anthony, the artist shows a messenger devil wearing ice skates, invoking the popular expression that the world was "slipping on ice"—meaning it had gone astray. Bosch, whose real name was Jheronimus van Aken, was widely copied and imitated: the number of surviving works by Bosch's students outnumbers the master's own output by more than ten times. Today only 20 paintings and eight drawings are attributed with certainty to Bosch's work. He continues to be regarded as a visionary, a depicter of dreams and nightmares, and the artist par excellence of hell and its demons. Featuring brand new photographs of recently restored paintings, this extensive book, published in anticipation of the upcoming 500th anniversary of Bosch's death, covers the artist's complete works. Discover Bosch's iconic inventions in stunning reproductions with rich details and a large fold-out illustration, over 110 cm (43 in.) long, of The Garden of Earthly Delights. Art historian and renowned Bosch expert Stefan Fischer examines what made Bosch and his painting so incredibly influential.
