Bosch

In the midst of the realist-leaning artistic climate of the Late Gothic and Early Renaissance, Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516) was more than an anomaly. Bosch’s paintings are populated with grotesque scenes of fantastical creatures succumbing to all manner of human desire, fantasy, and angst. One of his greatest inventions was to take the figural and scenic representations known as drolleries— which use the monstrous and the grotesque to illustrate sin and evil— and to transfer them from the marginalia of illuminated manuscripts into large-format panel paintings. Widely copied and imitated, only 20 paintings and eight drawings are confidently assigned to Bosch’s oeuvre. To this day, he continues to be seen as a visionary, a portrayer of dreams and nightmares, and the painter par excellence of hell and its demons.

Featuring brand new photography of recently restored paintings, this exhaustive book— published in view of the upcoming 500th anniversary of Bosch’s death— covers the artist’s complete works. Art historian, and acknowledged Bosch expert, Stefan Fischer examines just what it was about Bosch and his painting that proved so immensely influential. Discover Bosch’s pictorial inventions in splendid reproductions with intricate details and a huge fold-out spread (over 43" long) of The Garden of Earthly Delights.