Hieronymus Bosch Prints

About Hieronymus Bosch

Hieronymus Bosch, born Jheronimus van Aken around 1450, lived his whole life in 's-Hertogenbosch in the Duchy of Brabant, the town from which he took his name. He came from a family of painters, learned in the family workshop, and in 1486 or 1487 joined the Brotherhood of Our Lady, a religious confraternity whose records are the main source for his life. About twenty-five paintings and eight drawings are confidently attributed to him. The Garden of Earthly Delights, a triptych painted around 1495 to 1505 and now in the Prado, is the centre of his reputation: a creation, a crowded paradise of nude figures, giant fruit and birds, and a hell of burning cities and musical instruments turned into torture devices. Philip II of Spain collected his work in the later sixteenth century, which is why the major panels are in Madrid. Bosch died in August 1516. His imagery had no real precedent and no real successor until the Surrealists claimed him four centuries later. On a wall the triptych and its details work as a field of small, strange incidents, each one clearly drawn, that keep rewarding a second look.