The Religious Paintings

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It was in this time of religious unrest that Bosch, a very religious man who according to a number of sources joined a group known as the Brotherhood of our Lady, painted, and his doctrinaire belief in the religion is reflected in the very medieval nature of his paintings on religious topics. However they also reflect a resentment of the church, with church figures frequently presented as corrupt and almost diseased.

Bosch's paintings reflect a vivid imagination and a strong interest in moral values, but it is uncertain exactly what views Bosch held, as his symbolism relies on its archaism for its undoubted power.

His earliest works, such as 'epiphany' or 'the marriage feast at cana' are simple depictions of biblical tales, painted in loving detail but without the eccentricity present once he began to develop a style of his own. These first began to emerge in complex narrative pictures like 'the conjuror,' where such detail was needed to convey the story, but all of Bosch's most distinctive work was on morality and themes of punishment and sin. His first classic work was a tabletop of 'the seven deadly sins and the four last things.' This featured a single circle with four concentric rings, the innermost of which showed a beatific Christ, and the outermost of which comprised tableaux of each deadly sin. There are many subtle details in each, the dogs in 'lust' for example and the contrast between the glutton and his barely furnished dwellings. The 'four last things' depict possible eventualities, the most important being hell, which was later to feature almost to the exclusion of all else in Bosch's work, and the whole collection of images is surrounded by warnings of Gods omnipotence, in Latin.

However, outside of his hell paintings, Bosch had two symbols which were used for propagandic purposes, the owl, whose distanced observation of the Church's failings in works like 'ship of fools' symbolizes the evil of the scene it surveys, and carved heads on the end of staffs, which represent false idols, as in the ten commandments, and are always carried by the fools in Bosch's work. It is the paintings of the last judgment for which Bosch is best known, however, these comprising three giant panels, one of the fall of mankind and then two of hell. The fall of man features Eve presenting the apple of knowledge to Adam, but this is a small part of a wider tableau, where the tree is inhabited not by a snake but by a woman and God rests above dark clouds where angels fight scaled reptilian creatures with wings. Adam and eve feature three times concurrently, first at the bottom in God's grace, the fall, and then being chased from Eden by an angel with a sword. As they fall they get closer to god, but also to the owl in the tree and to the heavenly conflict above them.

The centre panel of the last judgment depicts human life, but in the same terms as hell on the other side of it. There are numerous subtle and outrageous depictions of the deadly sins, and demons are shown to walk alongside the humans, colluding in their sin. The majesty of the work in the detail, there is an unbelievable array of symbolism, all in the most apocalyptic terms. The point of this hell on earth is just that, there is little difference between it and Bosch's hell. Here the demons are replaced by humanoids in robes with the heads of swordfish and humans are pictured in great white naked huddles and burning in crucibles.

Bosch painted using this format of three panels on two other occasions, in 'the garden of earthly delights' and 'the haywain.' These are works of equal symbolic intricacy, but less wildly and imposing than those of 'the last judgment.' As Bosch matured his work became more devoutly religious, addressing contemporary issues of Church corruption rather than the general consequences of sin, but they are no less powerful than his earlier, maybe more sensational work.

Throughout his work, Bosch never questioned the sanctity of figures from the bible, but as 'christ carrying the cross' shows, he had no affection for the church. In this picture Christ carries the cross in closed-eyed serenity, but he is surrounded by blue tinged thieves, merchants, women and two priestly figures who are depicted in the harsh caricature of the villains rather than in the realistically rendered tranquility of their godhead.

Although it is almost impossible to fully comprehend the work of Hieronymus Bosch, it is possible to simply observe init a strong warning morality, and most importantly an imagination almost unrivalled in its gory genius.

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